Liberal Nationalisms: Empire, State, and Civil Society in Scotland and Quebec 9780773588059

Citation preview

Liberal Nationalisms

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Liberal Nationalisms Empire, State, and Civil Society in Scotland and Quebec ja m e s k e nnedy

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

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© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2013 ISBN 978-0-7735-3898-6 isbn 978-0-7735-8805-9 (epdf) Legal deposit first quarter 2013 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Kennedy, James, 1968– Liberal nationalisms: empire, state, and civil society in Scotland and Quebec / James Kennedy. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7735-3898-6 1. Nationalism – Scotland – History – 20th century. 2. Nationalism – Québec (Province) – History – 20th century. 3. Liberalism – Scotland – History – 20th century. 4. Liberalism – Québec (Province) – History – 20th century. 5. Scotland – History – Autonomy and independence movements. 6. Québec (Province) – History – Autonomy and independence movements. I. Title. DA765.K45 2013

320.540941109'041

C2012-906332-0

This book was typeset by Interscript in 10.5/13 Sabon.

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For my parents, Sheila and Graham Kennedy

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction

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1 Liberty and Nationality 9 2 Empire, State, and Civil Society at the Fin de siècle

33

3 Liberal Nationalists 57 4 Empire and Industry

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5 Scotland and the Search for Federation 119 6 French Canada and the Search for Consociation 150 7 Liberalism and the Politics of Civil Society 179 Conclusion: Contrasting Liberal Nationalisms Notes

218

245

Bibliography 293 Index

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Acknowledgments

My greatest intellectual debt is to John A. Hall for early and continued guidance; one could not have wished for a better academic mentor. I also owe an enormous debt to Liliana Riga for numerous useful and constructive conversations along the way: it is a better work as result. Their influence is apparent in what follows. David McCrone provided important support and wonderful intellectual advice at key moments both during and following the research. I am very grateful to Michael Keating for extremely useful and critical comments on an early version of this manuscript. I thank Hudson Meadwell and Maurice Pinard for valuable suggestions and their early and gracious support. I am indebted to Brian Young for his generosity in sharing his knowledge of Quebec history with me and to Bob Morris and Graeme Morton for sharing their knowledge of Scottish history. Gratitude is also owed to James Kellas and Bob Miles for their kind initial support of this project. I thank Carla Larese Riga for ensuring that my French translations didn’t contain any howlers! And I owe a special thanks to Geraint Osborne and Jeffrey Cormier for friendship during early stages of archival research. However, responsibility for any errors is my own. Financial support from a McGill University Social Sciences and Humanities Research Grant and a bursary from the Saint Andrew’s Society of Montreal made this research possible. I owe a special debt of thanks to Kyla Madden at McGill-Queen’s University Press for her patience, support, and guidance in bringing this manuscript to press, as well as to Ryan Van Huijstee. I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for the Press for their generous comments. Claude Lalumière provided excellent copyediting in addition to

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Acknowledgments

extremely useful substantive suggestions. I also wish to gratefully acknowledge that this book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. My family, Sheila and Graham Kennedy, Kirsty, David, Emma, and Rachel Wylie, Janice Lindsay, Carla Larese Riga, Giorgio Riga and Valerie Collett, and Robert Riga and Scott Rezendes have given unswerving support and encouragement throughout. I am especially grateful to Liliana Riga for her love and her intellectual and emotional support; she, together with Piccola, Devs, and Emma, saw this project from its beginning to its completion. Earlier versions of material contained in this book were previously published in the following journal articles: “‘A Switzerland of the North?’ The Nationalistes and a Bi-national Canada,” Nations and Nationalism, vol. 10, no. 4 (2004): 499–518; “Responding to Empire: Imperial Decline and Liberal Nationalism in Scotland and Quebec.” Journal of Historical Sociology, vol. 19, no. 3 (2006): 284–307; and “‘Contrasting Liberal Nationalists’: The Young Scots’ Society and the Ligue nationaliste canadienne.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, vol. 13, no. 1 (2007): 39–70.

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Liberal Nationalisms

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Introduction

This book adopts a comparative historical sociological approach to the study of nationalism in Scotland and Quebec, in which differences as much as similarities between them are highlighted. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz used the phrase “at once very alike and very different, they form a kind of commentary on one another’s character” to describe Islam in Morocco and Indonesia.1 This is an equally apt phrase to describe the forms of nationalism that emerged in the very different contexts of Scotland and Quebec between the outbreak of the South African War in 1899 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the time period of the liberal nationalisms covered in this book. Most notably, both Scots and French Canadians shared a political space – the British Empire – yet they enjoyed very different positions within that space. Therefore, these nationalisms reflected those similarities and differences. This book seeks to chart and explain their strength and character. While Scotland and Quebec (and Catalonia), have become familiar comparators for social scientists examining contemporary substate nationalism in the developed North,2 to scholars at the turn of the twentieth century the comparison would not have been obvious. The contrasting position of Scotland and Quebec within the British Empire, the privileged position enjoyed by Scots across the Empire in contrast with French Canadians’ sense of imperial subordination alone would have made such a comparison unlikely, not to mention the very different levels and patterns of industrialization. More obvious comparisons would lie between Scotland and Canada as a whole, with its significant Scottish-origin population, and their respective relationships with a powerful southern

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neighbour (England and the United States); or French Canadians and the Boers of South Africa (explicit comparisons were made during this period between these two European-origin national minorities); or Quebec and Ireland: Stevenson makes excellent use of their shared histories of conquest, rebellion and Catholicism in his study.3 However, the method adopted here seeks to contrast the two cases, to identify ways in which the cases are marked as much by difference as similarity. In doing so, this study makes explicit use of contrast to draw out and highlight the peculiarities of each case. This is to utilise what Charles Taylor terms the language of “perspicuous contrast,” a way of presenting two ways of life “as alternative possibilities in relation to some human constants at work in both.”4 The groups under investigation, the Young Scots’ Society and the Ligue nationaliste canadienne, were chosen not because they were the sole carriers of nationalism during this period, but because they were the most influential. The groups themselves diverge quite markedly in terms of their duration, organization, and complexion. The YSS spans the greater part of the period in question: it was formed in 1900 and continued to exist following the First World War, although its postwar status was much diminished. It had a formal structure: branches of the Society spread from its Edinburgh roots throughout Scotland, and it found particular success in the industrial west. At its zenith in 1911, the YSS had around 3500 members and fifty-six branches. In contrast, the Ligue came into existence only in 1903 and was much more informal in nature. It had none of the formalized structure of the YSS, preferring instead to promote the group’s program through sponsorship of public meetings, occasional forays into electoral politics and, above all, through journalism and its flagship newspaper, Le Nationaliste, founded in 1904. The date of the Ligue’s dissolution is unclear; its activity appears to have become largely synonymous with the journalism of Le Nationaliste. Given these factors, and following Levitt,5 the focus is on the political activities of the Ligue’s leading members, Olivar Asselin, Omer Héroux, and Armand Lavergne, together with the journalist, Jules Fournier, and their mentor, Henri Bourassa. Liberalism is a central element of this book not least since both groups shared a commitment to liberalism and had formative relationships with the established Liberal parties in Scotland and Quebec. Ralf Dahrendorf’s distinction between classical and social liberalism provides a useful way of understanding the way it is used here.

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Introduction

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Simply stated, classical liberalism insists that “People must be allowed to follow their own interests and desires, constrained only by rules which prevent their encroachment on the liberty of others.”6 This is a broad principle, allowing for its application in the political, social, and economic realms, and indeed to a number of specific issues. For example, the Young Scots and Nationalistes organized political campaigns around which freedom of speech and freedom of worship were respectively championed, while both groups debated the efficacy of free trade. During this period, a more social liberalism was also in evidence, one that sought to extend rights beyond the legal and political into the social arena in the belief that these rights were “a necessary prerequisite for the exercise of equality before the law and universal suffrage.”7 Both groups moved away from an adherence to unfettered markets toward advocating a more interventionist, state-led range of social reforms on health, housing, and education, in line with the ideas of the “new liberalism” and “progressivism” emerging in the UK and USA respectively. The role of the Liberal parties in this shift is not straightforward. There is no necessary correspondence between the theoretical formulation of liberalism and the political programs of Liberal parties; while the Liberal parties in Scotland and Quebec continued to be the main political carriers of liberalism, the Conservative parties had also championed classical liberal reforms, just as the emerging Labour parties were challenging the Liberal parties in their advocacy of social liberalism. Methodologically, the emphasis is on what nationalists actually said. Primary source material generated by these groups and individuals were utilized for both cases, with care taken to accurately reflect genuine debate among these individuals and groups. In the Scottish case, a particular emphasis was placed on primary sources, not least because no study has hitherto focused on the Young Scots’ Society and there are no biographies of its leading members. The personal papers of Roland Eugene Muirhead, the Scottish Secretariat archive, held at the National Library of Scotland (NLS), Edinburgh, proved to be the richest source of material on the YSS. Muirhead was a prominent Young Scot, as well as a leading financial contributor to the organization. These papers provided a gold mine of material, including Muirhead’s personal correspondence, Young Scot leaflets and publications, and newspaper cuttings, often interspersed with the odd theatre program or postcard. They provide a valuable resource for the period under study, and not as previously intimated

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covering only those involved in nationalist and left-wing politics between the end of the First World War and the 1960s.8 This was supplemented with additional Muirhead papers and those of John L. Kinloch, land reformer and YSS associate, at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, and with John Gulland’s (YSS general secretary and treasurer, 1903–06) relatively slim file at the NLS. These collections provided valuable information on the organization and social composition of the YSS. The records of the Scottish Liberal Association, Edinburgh University Library, and the papers of the Liberal Member of Parliament, Alexander MacCallum Scott, Glasgow University Library, were consulted to relate YSS activity to wider Liberal Party activity in Scotland and at Westminster, respectively. Additional information on the YSS, and on the national movement in general, was also found in nationalist periodicals of the period, including the YSS’s own journal, The Young Scot (1903–05), as well as The Fiery Cross (1901–12), The Scottish Nationalist (1903), The Scottish Patriot (1903–06), The Thistle (1909–18), and The Scottish Nation (1913–17). A selected examination of the Scottish daily and weekly press yielded further material through its coverage of YSS events. Contemporary printed sources were also consulted. Research in Quebec followed a parallel course. The personal papers of Olivar Asselin, held at the Archives municipales de Montréal, and those of Henri Bourassa and Armand Lavergne, held at Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, were consulted. These primary sources were supplemented with biographies of the individuals under study. A selection of Henri Bourassa and Armand Lavergne’s contributions to parliamentary and legislative debates, as members of Canada’s House of Commons and Quebec’s Legislative Assembly, were also consulted. More generally, their ideas, together with those of Jules Fournier and Omer Héroux were found in the following newspapers: Les Débats (1899–1903), Le Nationaliste (1904–11), Le Devoir (1910-present), and L’Action (1911–13). A limited amount of information was also gleaned from the records and correspondence of the Imprimerie populaire limitée, the publishers of Le Nationaliste and Le Devoir, held at the Institute d’histoire de l’amérique française, Outremont. Additional information was provided through a selected examination of nationalist newspapers, notably La Verité (1881–1923), La Croix (1903–37), and L’Action sociale catholique (1907–15), and the daily and weekly press of Quebec and Canada. The examination of these primary sources was

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Introduction

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undertaken in conjunction with a thorough review of secondary sources; literature for and against my contentions was consulted, and consideration of changing historiographical fashions was taken into account.9 The opening chapter frames the book conceptually. It establishes that nation and nationalisms are modern, that while there are socioeconomic preconditions to their emergence it is political variables that account for their rise and subsequent development. In the cases of Scotland and Quebec within this time period this leads to an examination of empire, state, and civil society. In addition, particular attention is focused on the character of nationalism and the degree to which nationalism and liberalism can be reconciled, the central theme of this book. The book proceeds by first presenting the fin de siècle context within which the Young Scots and Nationalistes emerged. In particular, chapter 2 elaborates the importance of the three elements, identified in chapter 1, to the development of these nationalists: empire, state, and civil society. These were the mechanisms through which Scotland and Quebec were governed. The chapter argues that it was changes to each of these elements – already underway from the late nineteenth century – that prompted the emergence of liberal nationalists. Chapter 3 introduces the Young Scots’ Society and the Ligue nationaliste canadienne and provides a social profile of their leading members. More specifically, it shows that, while organizationally and strategically these were contrasting groups, their members shared a similar set of social attributes: young, urban, and professional, the product of distinctly national institutions. The next four chapters provide empirical accounts of the emergence of the nationalists, which trace the interconnectedness between liberalism and nationalism in the development of their groupings against the backdrop of empire, state, and civil society. Chapter 4 locates the nationalists within the context of the British Empire, with which Scotland and Quebec had very different relationships. These nationalists are understood through an examination of three British imperial policies: the South African War, the attempt to implement tariff protection within the empire, and Britain’s naval race with Germany. The emergence of liberal nationalists in Scotland and Quebec was, in part, a response to the increasingly “predatory” behaviour of the British Empire. The degree to which Scotland and Quebec were dependent on Britain’s “industrial empire” is stressed,

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together with the nationalists’ responses. Finally, the chapter emphasizes the important role that the Empire played in the diffusion of ideas, particularly liberal ideas. Broadly defined, federalism characterized the governance of Scotland and Quebec. However, during this era it was under strain. Chapters 5 and 6 situate the Young Scots’ and Nationalistes’ political projects within the context of Scotland’s position within the British state, and French Canada’s place within the Canadian state, respectively. It was the reform of these political systems that was sought: a Scottish Home Rule Parliament within a formally federal Britain, and a Canadian federation that was avowedly consociational. In the UK, the issue was political, as Scottish legislation was being relegated at Westminster; while in Canada the issue was existential: mass immigration and curbs on schooling outside Quebec undermined French Canadians’ position in Canada. Civil society is crucial to understanding the character of the nationalism that emerged. Chapter 7 locates these liberal nationalists within their distinctive civil societies, arguing that they not only reflected the national distinctiveness of their civil society, but also the degree to which it is governed by liberal norms. By locating and examining the nationalists’ views on a range of institutions and groups a clear picture emerges of their liberalism. Of particular importance was the role played by the established Church (the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec) within these civil societies. Specifically, the extent to which the Church dominated civil society, and the degree to which liberal openings existed was key. The Church is examined together with the educational and legal systems, local government, business, and the press. In addition, the Young Scots’ and Nationalistes’ responses to demands made for inclusion by labour, women, and immigrant minorities, further reveals the degree to which their nationalism exhibited a liberal hue. The final chapter draws together these findings by emphasizing the ways in which the liberalism and nationalism of the Young Scots and Nationalistes were frequently in service of each other, by contrasting them with other nationalist groups active in Scotland and Quebec. This took a different form in these contrasting contexts, suggesting the existence of “two types of liberal nationalism.” Their emergence can be related to the degree to which they were the result of the liberalization of nationalism or the nationalization of liberalism.

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1 Liberty and Nationality

This book investigates a particular form of nationalism: liberal nationalism. The focus is on two nationalist groupings that emerged, respectively, in Scotland and Quebec in the decades preceding the First World War: the Young Scots’ Society (YSS) and the Ligue nationaliste canadienne. The liberal nationalism they exhibited was expressed differently in these contrasting contexts, suggesting two distinct liberal nationalisms. The underlying sources of these nationalisms provide the centrepiece of the book. The actions of the British Empire and the British and Canadian states are identified as not only prompting nationalist responses but also shaping their liberal character.1 The constitution of civil society in Scotland and Quebec was equally important in shaping this character and in revealing the degree to which a commitment to liberalism underpinned these nationalisms. It was through a series of debates within these societies – whether on participation in the South African War or the imperial preference policy, the need for social reform, or the rights of women and immigrants – that a liberal nationalism was revealed. Liberalism dominated much contemporaneous writing on the British Empire. Its ideological dominance provided nationalists in component parts of the Empire with a language with which to make claims for liberty and equality. Mehta, for example, has highlighted that the language of liberalism framed British debates on the governance of India throughout the nineteenth century.2 It was this language that was utilised by nationalists in Scotland and Quebec. These nationalists emerged within the “liberal world” of the early twentieth century. However, this was a world in which liberalism was significantly different to the liberalism that had emerged in the

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eighteenth century, formed by the development of commercial society, and the liberalism of the Victorian era, marked by industrialization and the new imperialism. Edwardian liberalism laid claim to both, yet in subtle, and not so subtle, ways it was distinct. It had to grapple with the push for mass democracy and the demands from below for social citizenship, women’s suffrage, and national recognition. In this, it took a more social form, as exemplified by the emergence of new liberalism and progressivism. However, the form liberalism took was not uniform, and it often incorporated other ideological currents. The degree to which liberalism was entwined with nationalism is key, therefore, whether as the result of the nationalization of liberalism or the liberalization of nationalism. The nationalist movements examined here emerged within this liberal world. The early motto of the Young Scots’ Society, invoking the “Grand Old Man” of British Liberalism, “For Gladstone and Scotland,” encapsulated the Society’s dual aim: to promote both liberalism through support for radical reform and nationalism through support for Scottish Home Rule, that is, the establishment of a substate parliament for Scotland within the United Kingdom. While the importance of this group in promoting Scottish Home Rule in the immediate pre-1914 era has been acknowledged,3 this is the first sustained study of this group. The book charts its formation during the South Africa War and its subsequent development until the outbreak of the First World War. A contrast is drawn with other nationalist groupings that emerged during this period. The YSS was the more clearly popular movement: it grew organizationally through this period, and by 1911 it had 3,500 members in 56 branches. Moreover, it was itself transformed during this period; its geographical centre of gravity shifted from Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders to Glasgow and urban west central Scotland. Its policy position reflected its changed geography, from traditional liberal concerns, such as free trade, to more social concerns, such as housing reform. Above all, the centrality of Scottish Home Rule was strengthened in its political platform. The Young Scots are contrasted with the Ligue nationaliste canadienne, founded during the same period in Francophone Quebec and, in particular, with the political careers of the five individuals most closely identified with it: Olivar Asselin, its founder; Omer Héroux, Armand Lavergne, and Jules Fournier; and their mentor,

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Henri Bourassa – collectively referred to as the Nationalistes. There are a series of works on, and biographies of, these leading figures in the Nationaliste movement.4 However, in light of the analysis of the Young Scots, the aim here is to ask different questions of the Nationalistes. The focus is on their political rather than their social program5 and, in particular, their advocacy of a binational Canada, in which French and British Canadians would be politically equal. This was a grouping that eschewed a formal structure. Their ad hoc involvement in both federal and provincial politics is examined: the highwater mark was the 1911 federal election, in which twenty-one Nationalistes were elected. But the key means by which they sought to disseminate their views was through the establishment of newspapers: Le Nationaliste (1904–11), Le Devoir (1910–present), and L’Action (1911–13). The Nationalistes were highly influential, yet they stood in marked contrast, both ideologically and organizationally, to other nationalist groups of the period, most notably the Catholic Church-sanctioned Association catholique de la jeunesse canadienne-française (ACJC). Their largely secular and liberal concerns contrasted with the religious-orientation of the ACJC, which had branches and members across Quebec. Moreover, by viewing the Nationalistes through the prism of liberalism, their program appears not as coherent6 or as conservative7 as previously suggested. Rather, on a range of issues they were split, with the faultline drawn between Bourassa, Héroux, and Lavergne on one side, and Asselin and Fournier on the other. Frequently these debates revealed tensions between liberty and nationality. These debates resonate with those contemporary arguments about the efficacy of liberal nationalism that seek to reconcile these tensions. Indeed, the title of this chapter, borrowed from Lewis Naimer,8 focuses attention on precisely this tension at the heart of liberal nationalism. Naimer famously drew attention to the conjunction of liberty and nationality in the European revolutions of 1848. This fusion between liberalism and nationalism is widely acknowledged; nationalism turned imperialist and fascist only in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.9 Yet, the symbiosis between liberalism and nationalism has never been unproblematic. This chapter examines key debates that are useful in understanding the empirical material examined. It first examines the sociological formation of nations before turning to their normative expression.

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nation and nationalisms The concept of nation continues to pose analytical problems for social scientists. However, it is possible to make a distinction between objective and subjective definitions of nations. In the former category, definitions that pinpoint, for example, shared language, religion, and history are unsatisfactory, “since only some members of the large class of entities which fit such definitions can at any time be described as ‘nations,’ exceptions can always be found.”10 Scotland and Quebec illustrate the point well. Scotland shares a common language and Protestantism (albeit with important distinctions) with England, yet it has maintained a distinctive character, while in Quebec the French language and Roman Catholicism have been the very hallmarks of Quebec’s distinctiveness. In John Hall’s words “there is no firm sociological mooring to the nation.”11 Ernest Renan provides the most celebrated subjective definition, describing the nation as a “daily plebiscite.”12 The anthropologist Frederick Barth similarly defines the related concept of ethnicity in subjective terms: “ethnic groups are categories of ascription and identification by the actors themselves.”13 Ernest Gellner draws on this anthropological perspective in his definition, arguing that nations exist where individuals share the same culture and recognize each other as belonging to the same nation.14 In a similar vein, Benedict Anderson’s “imagined community” offers an original and useful conception of nation.15 The nation is imagined since even the members of the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, and it is always imagined as a community since, although inequality exists, membership is viewed as a horizontal relationship.16 This conception, which confers on individuals a certain agency in terms of how the nation is imagined, and crucial to the resultant nationalism, will be adopted. Therefore, the conception of nation remains necessarily vague and ambiguous. While all leading commentators agree that nationalism is a thoroughly modern ideology, nationalism, nevertheless, persists in invoking the past. Tom Nairn refers to this phenomenon using the analogy of a Janus head, standing over the passage to modernity with one face looking forward, the other backward, representing both the invocation of the ancient and the modern.17 This is the very paradox of nationalism: its ability to appear subjectively ancient while being objectively modern.18 Yet, both John Armstrong and Anthony

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Smith seek to demonstrate that nations have premodern roots.19 They advance a perennialist perspective, which accepts that nations are enduring entities, contrary to the modernist view, without viewing them as natural, as primordialists do. Smith writes, “there have, indeed, been important changes within collective units and sentiments, even changes of form; but these have all occurred within a pre-existing framework of loyalties.”20 Thus, “in order to forge a ‘nation’ today, it is vital to create and crystallize ethnic components, the lack of which is likely to cause a serious impediment to ‘nation-building.’”21 In part, this is as much an empirical question as a theoretical contention.22 Does Scotland’s longer history, with its more established ethnie,23 provide it with a stronger claim than Quebec’s more recent history? There is also some irony in the fact that Scottish nationalism, despite its ancient lineage, appears to make less use of culture than does its Quebec counterpart. Steve Bruce suggests that Scotland simply lacked the necessary ethnic resources: historically, Scotland was too linguistically, religiously, and geographically divided.24 Modernists dispute that ethnic roots are a necessary condition for the emergence of nationalism, since nations can simply be “invented” or “imagined.”25 Thus, nationalism creates nations, and not the other way around. Both Scotland and Quebec provide illustrations of the way in which the past is invented and imagined. It is plausible that the kilt, the “ancient” costume of Highland Scots, dates from the 1730s, invented by an English Quaker in order provide a more suitable work garment for Highlanders working in his Inverness factory.26 In Quebec, the cult of Dollard des Ormeaux, the hero of New France, owes more to nationalists at the beginning of the twentieth century than to historical fact.27 Hobsbawm and Ranger document a series of “inventions of tradition,” implying that because the “traditions” of nationalism are “invented” they are less real and valid, thus suggesting that they are merely the recent and manipulative creations of nationalists.28 And yet, this is to neglect that all traditions are in some sense created and that tradition is never static, it is always subject to contestation.29 Modernists are generally dismissive of the claim that some form of vertical, i.e., cross-class, ethnic community existed in agrarian societies. However, Michael Mann makes some concession to the perennialist view, stating that there were two “protonational” phases in the premodern era, carried first by the Church and then by a

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combination of commercial capitalism and the modern state.30 Kidd confirms this view, arguing that “both Scotland and England had enjoyed lively ethnocentric identities based on history, religion and conceptions of freedom, on a continuous basis long before the nineteenth century.”31 The role of religion was key. The distinctive organization of the Christian Church in Scotland – Roman Catholic then Presbyterian – provided a political basis for (proto)national claims, while the Roman Catholic Church was instrumental in promoting nationalism among French Canadians in Quebec. This is in line with scholarship that maintains that early modern European nationalism emerged entwined with religion.32 The fervour of nationalism can be explained not because it is so deeply rooted, as Armstrong and Smith claim, rather it is derived from “its ability to link family, local community and national terrain”33 and from its ability to unite the living and the dead by providing “a secular transformation of fatality into continuity.”34 Increasingly, in the modern occidental world, it is the nation, and not religion, that unites past and future generations. According to Ernest Gellner nationalism’s historic mission is to play the part of cupid, bringing the nation and state together in secular matrimony. In Gellner’s now famous words, nationalism is a principle “which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent.”35 Mann similarly argues, “a nation is a community affirming a distinct ethnic identity, history and destiny, and claiming a state of its own.”36 Yet the nationalists under study neither sought nor desired such a formula. The Young Scots sought a Home Rule Parliament to legislate on domestic matters (for example, education, housing, and land reform), but one that was subordinate in all other matters to the imperial parliament in London. In contrast, the Nationalistes looked to Canada as the surest way of preserving the “French fact” in North America. This was to be accomplished not through the reform of Canada’s internal political structure but through the recognition of the cultural autonomy of French Canadians based on their status as a “founding people.”37 Thus, nationalism need not entail the desire to establish an independent state; it may be content to seek a form of political or cultural autonomy. Nationalism need not be driven by either assimilation or secession or genocide, the options suggested by Gellner’s definition; there are a range of intermediate strategies available.38 In practical terms, in order to secure an acceptable arrangement, political nationalists have had to engage with the modern state.

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Michael Mann’s state-centred typology of nationalism identifies three classical instances: state-reinforcing (France, England/Britain), statecreating (Germany, Italy), and state-subverting (Czechs, Slovaks).39 Scottish and French Canadian nationalisms would appear to be closest to the third category, since they occurred within existing states, yet, their intention was not to “subvert” the state40 but rather to reform it, to reorganize political and cultural space along national lines without undermining the integrity of the established state. Nationalists argued that cultural/political autonomy would strengthen the existing state. Therefore, the existence of a fourth category is suggested by the present study: state-reforming nationalism.41 This form of nationalism is moderate in aim and does not seek to subvert the existing state through the creation of an independent state but rather seeks to reform it in order to accommodate, culturally or politically, the aspirations of substate nationalists. Moreover, Gellner’s definition of nationalism is clearly a definition of political nationalism and, therefore, fails to account for the existence of a purely cultural nationalism.42 John Hutchinson argues that cultural nationalism is distinctive: “there are two quite different types of nationalism – cultural and political – that must not be conflated, for they articulate different, even competing conceptions of nation, form their own distinctive organizations, and have sharply differing political strategies.”43 Cultural nationalism is often devoid of any political ambition. Such a conception of cultural nationalism is ideal-typical, and, as this book suggests, there is often an overlap between cultural and political nationalists: nationalists in Scotland and Quebec frequently shared a membership of both cultural nationalist and political nationalist organizations, and their nationalisms embodied both cultural and political claims. Nationalism in the modern world emerges both as a form of identity and as a political project. So a definition of nationalism needs to account for both. At a mundane level nationalism is simply the expression of national identity. Michael Billig’s “banal nationalism” and Anthony Cohen’s “personal nationalism” belong here, the first concerned with social identity and the latter with individual identity.44 Both are attempts to understand nationalism’s pervasiveness in the modern world, its everyday quality, while being unrelated to particular political projects; they are also reminders that nationalism is a form of identity, and not simply interest-driven.45 In Cohen’s words “the nation is one of the resources on which individuals draw to

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formulate their sense of selfhood,” they do this not in any uniform way, indeed a distinction may be apparent between a regime’s representation of the nation and individuals interpretations of that representation: “[W]e hear their voices but listen to ourselves.”46 More fundamentally, when answering the question “Who are you?,” in the modern world “the most useful all-purpose handle remains one’s nation,” Nairn paraphrases the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, “in that situation you just find yourself gabbling on about clanship, tartans, Jacobites and whatever else will make the necessary effect.”47 Yet nationalism also takes a more overtly political form. Here a broader conception of nationalism is required than that proposed by Gellner, something along the lines of Brendan O’Leary’s definition: “Nationalism … holds that the nation should be collectively and freely institutionally expressed, and ruled by its co-nationals.”48 My own conception reads: nationalism as a political project seeks an arrangement in which the status of the nation is politically and/or culturally enhanced. This is a deliberately ambiguous definition, yet its strength lies in its general applicability, it allows for greater understanding of the role that nationalism, in all its forms, has played, outside of the “one nation, one state” formula. Graeme Morton’s “unionist nationalism” comes to mind here: “a form of nationalism that stressed Scotland’s equality with England under the Union.”49 Note also that it applies equally to nationalisms that are stateachieved, the United States for example, and nationalisms, as in the case of Scotland and Quebec, that are potentially in conflict with the central state. The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor’s “politics of recognition” provides a way of understanding both elements of this definition: nationalism as identity and nationalism as a political project.50 Taylor argues that one of the driving forces behind nationalist movements is “the need, sometimes the demand, for recognition.”51 His thesis, stated simply, is that “our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others, and so a person or group can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining, or demeaning, or contemptible picture of themselves.”52 Crucially, identity is defined “always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us.”53 This preoccupation with identity is unique to the modern

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world, occasioned by the collapse of premodern social hierarchies. The result has been the development of an individualized identity, one that is particular to the individual, based on dignity and not on honour. Herder applied this idea of originality to peoples: the German Volk had to be true to themselves and abstain from becoming second-rate Frenchmen.54 Therefore, individuals not only constitute nations, but nations were conceived of as individuals making similar claims for civil, political, and social rights. This was a view, for instance, expressed in the writings of the Young Scots and Nationalistes.

political causes and socioeconomic preconditions Socioeconomic explanations have until recently constituted the dominant paradigm in studies of nationalism. The works of Ernest Gellner and Miroslav Hroch are notable. Gellner (theoretically) and Hroch (empirically) contend that it is the diffusion of the industrial revolution, and its attendant social transformation, that are definitive in the development of nationalist movements. Despite significant differences, in some ways Hroch’s empirical study compliments and substantiates Ernest Gellner’s abstract theoretical contentions. Gellner’s most complete theory locates nationalism’s emergence in the social organization of “industrial society.”55 Members of industrial society must be mobile in order to move from one activity to another, follow manuals and instructions, and be able to communicate using a standardized linguistic medium and script. Therefore, the population must be culturally standardized; nationalism reflects this objective need for homogeneity. The education system facilitates this: school-transmitted culture replaces folk-transmitted culture, and education becomes the very hallmark of the industrial human. The state underpins the “newly universalized” high culture, since only it has the necessary resources to sustain such a large and costly enterprise. Therefore, the historical aim of nationalism is to link culture and state, as required by the modern economy.56 This view of nationalism, as the expression of the need for cultural homogeneity, better fits the linguistically based nationalism of Quebec than Scottish nationalism, where language demands are largely absent. Gellner recognized this peculiarity, even suggesting that “Scottish nationalism … may be held to contradict my model.”57

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Gellner provides an ideal-typical and highly abstract explanation of why nationalism emerges in the modern world, without a corresponding analysis of how this occurred. Miroslav Hroch’s account compliments Gellner’s.58 Hroch’s major contribution to the study of nationalism has been his historical analysis of the sequential development of patriotic movements in the nineteenth century. Hroch emphasizes their social origins, analyzing the support given by different social groups at different phases of their development. Crucial to Hroch’s analysis is whether patriotic movements emerge before, during, or after the advent of industrialism. His study was largely confined to nondominant ethnic groups under Habsburg and Romanov rule in Central and Eastern Europe (with three exceptions: Norway, Flanders, and the Danish minority in Schleswig). Therefore, in a sense, Liberal Nationalisms aims to compliment and refine Hroch’s work, with this book’s concentration on nationalism in “the West” under constitutional Hanoverian rule59 and through its use of political variables. Hroch outlines three phases during which nationalism develops: “Phase A nationalism (the period of scholarly interest),” which later develops into “Phase B (the period of patriotic agitation),” and then “Phase C (the rise of a mass national movement).”60 However, the general applicability of the sequential development of these phases has already been questioned.61 This study suggests that the first two phases are not as discrete as Hroch’s model might suggest, since there is often an overlap between political and cultural nationalists. More fundamentally, Hroch fails to explain why a transition from cultural to political nationalism takes place. Hroch’s pursuance of economic and class explanations, at the expense of political and geopolitical causes, perhaps explains this.62 Hroch implicitly acknowledges the importance of political variables in his discussion of “disintegrated” nationalism, since nation-formation fails if it begins when liberal constitutional guarantees (a “bourgeois revolution”) are already in place. Therefore, “when liberal constitutional reforms make the adequate articulation of individual and groups needs possible, nationalist agitation may be less necessary to the achievement of the sense of autonomy and community that nationalism provides.”63 The influence of Karl Deutsch’s social communications approach is key to Hroch’s work.64 Hroch found that national agitation proceeded most rapidly in areas where the communication system was at a relatively higher level.65 Mann concedes the point: “[T]here was

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probably a threshold level of market-aided literacy and communication below which patriots could not credibly organize … But above that threshold there was diversity.”66 However, this diversity is explained not with reference to capitalism, since “there was little in the capitalism of this period to encourage a distinctively national civil society” (capitalism remained transnational), rather the key lies with the state.67 But Hroch was less successful in identifying a single social carrier of nationalism: “no class or professional group was an irreplaceable component of Phase B.”68 Yet the social origins of the nationalists under study accord with Hroch’s more general findings, as chapter 3 will establish: they were young, urban, professional, and socially mobile.69 They were also overwhelmingly male, perhaps a reflection of the fact that in many settings nationalism has appeared as a distinctly gender-biased ideology.70 Tom Nairn’s account of nationalisms within the British state drew on Gellner’s earliest statement that nationalism is a response to the “uneven diffusion” of industrialization.71 Nairn’s work shared with Gellner’s the view that nationalism is a modernizing ideology. Nairn’s contention was that “rather than accept progress as it is thrust upon them by the metropolitan centre, the hinterland has to demand it on its own terms.”72 In the classic European setting, the rising middleclass, impatient with absolutism, sought power. Nationalism was the means by which they gained the support of the people for this endeavour: “the new middle-class of nationalism had to invite the masses into history; and the invitation-card had to be written in a language they understood.”73 However, through its Treaty of Union with England, Scotland had largely escaped this process, since it achieved economic modernity through England’s backdoor. While the story in Quebec is very different, it, too, achieved economic modernity without recourse to this model. Michael Hechter’s earliest contribution offers a similar structural argument, influenced not by Gellner but by Immanuel Wallerstein’s world systems theory.74 Hechter argued that nationalism was often a response to “internal colonialism,” a situation in which the state is divided into a “core” and a “periphery.” Cultural divisions are superimposed upon socioeconomic divisions to form a “cultural division of labour,” which in turn contributes to the development of a distinct cultural identity in each of the resulting cultural groups.75 The existence of a cultural division of labour was particularly striking in Quebec, where until relatively recently, and certainly during

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the period under review, Anglophones were dominant in managerial positions, while Francophones were concentrated in low-salaried positions.76 Yet this high degree of segmentation failed to give rise to a mass-based nationalist movement, in fact nationalist mobilization only occurred when segmentation was breaking down and not when it was stable.77 However, its application to Scotland was always more dubious, given that “it played the role of ‘junior partner’ in British imperialism rather than colonial underdog.”78 As McCrone writes, “[T]he obvious problem with Hechter’s account is that it does not fit historical facts”: both Scotland and Quebec possessed relatively high degrees of institutional and cultural autonomy, therefore their nationalisms were less a reaction to their relatively disadvantaged relationship to the central state than they were an expression of relatively privileged relationships.79 The major problem with socioeconomic approaches is that they inextricably link nationalism with industrialism. Mann questions the historical accuracy of this link and concludes that “industrialization … came a little too late to explain nationalism,” since even Britain in the 1790s could not be called industrial, and no state possessed effective mass state-funded education until well after 1850.80 Therefore, contrary to what Gellner and others argue, nationalism cannot be directly attributed to the development of capitalism and industrialism. Nationalism arose right across Europe amid different levels of capitalist and industrial development, and therefore appeared among different economies and classes.81 Before 1870 mercantile and industrial capitalism “remained largely transnational in its organization and effects.”82 The key failing in the accounts reviewed, then, is the absence of political variables, or at least their subordination. Michael Mann argues that a primarily political explanation is suggested by the fact that the presence or absence of regional administrations offers a better predictor than ethnicity in accounting for the emergence of nations.83 This is to build on the now widely accepted finding that historically states emerged before nations.84 This has led John Hall to comment, “nationalism looks as if it is at least in part a political phenomenon, accordingly best explained in political terms.”85 This is a view shared by John Breuilly and Michael Hechter.86 Political approaches relate nationalism to the formation of the modern state and to two attendant historical processes: warfare and democratization.87

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Warfare, and in particular the fiscal-military pressures wielded by geopolitical rivalry, played a decisive role in the forging of nations. The Military Revolution meant that these rivalries were becoming increasingly important to the lives of people as taxpayers and combatants. For example, the Napoleonic Wars absorbed between 31 percent and 43 percent of Britain’s GNP, while more than 5 percent of its population was conscripted in the armed forces.88 Linda Colley argues that “[T]ime and time again, war with France brought Britons, whether they hailed from Wales or Scotland or England, into confrontation with an obviously hostile Other and encouraged them to define themselves collectively against it.”89 This rivalry dominated politics and politicized social life in Britain, or “at least those with discursive literacy.” The result was that “nationalist sentiment focused on the British-French contrast now became widely and overtly expressed.”90 This gave rise to a classic pattern whereby the modern state, at the behest of the pressures of modern warfare, imposed taxation and conscription on hitherto quiescent populations, which in turn fuelled demands for representation.91 Thus, an addendum to the finding that “wars make states”92 needs to be made: wars make states make nations. Warfare, not only in the early nineteenth century but also in both world wars of the twentieth century continued to forge Britishness. Yet, the reverse was true in Canada: the imposition of conscription in both world wars brought forth a nationalist reaction in Quebec and threatened the social cohesion of Canada. The modern state has been decisive in producing the politics of popular representation, which have been expressed in several varieties of modern nationalism. In particular, “both their milder and aggressive aspects originated and developed in response to the drive for democracy.”93 Tom Nairn suggests that it is the search for sovereignty, “the ultimate or last resort power of decision over a given population and territory,” that explains contemporary nationalism in Scotland.94 This search was intensified during the Thatcher/Major years (1979–97), a period during which Scotland was ruled by a political party and political philosophy it had electorally rejected. Related to the process of democratization has been the creation of welfare states, themselves the achievement of a particular form of democracy, social democracy. The welfare state has been the key nation-building project in the twentieth century, and one that has contributed to substate nation-building in Scotland and Quebec.95

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Nationalisms in Scotland and Quebec have particular relationships to processes of democratization. French Canadian nationalism was initially linked to the demand for responsible government, which culminated in the rebellions of 1837–38. In Scotland, a national dimension was present in struggles to extend the suffrage, yet this fell well short of being overtly nationalist. However, in the early twentieth century the provision of social legislation became a central demand for nationalists: Young Scots wanted Home Rule not as an end in itself but as a means of enacting social reform, while the Nationalistes in Quebec formulated a social program.96 Therefore, warfare and demands for representation aid our understanding of the ebb and flow of nationalism in Scotland and Quebec, underlining the importance of a political account of nationalism.

empire, state, and civil society The contrasting forms and characters of nationalism suggests the importance of two further political factors: the nature of the regime and the institutional design of states. Max Weber’s famous claim – that a state is that entity which is both territorial in organization and possesses “the monopoly of legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order” – remains for the most part unchallenged.97 This should not suggest that states are monolithic. They are not. States employ both “despotic” and “infrastructural” power.98 The strength of infrastructural states is that they are able to form alliances with actors in their societies and, therefore, rule through society. Despotic states are relegated to ruling over society. Britain’s ultimately successful series of wars with France in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries testified to the strength of the former over the latter.99 This example points to a relationship between the nature of the regime and the institutional design of states: Britain’s liberal regime was organized infrastructurally, while authoritarian France maintained a despotic state. But how does this relationship relate to nationalism? The limited record of successful secession among liberal democratic regimes suggests the importance of regime type. Stéphane Dion makes the point that liberal democratic states have not faced successful secession after experiencing a reasonable period of universal suffrage.100 This would appear to accord with the facts: Norway enacted universal male suffrage in 1898, and seceded from

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Sweden in 1905; southern Ireland seceded from Britain in 1922, after a significant broadening of universal suffrage; and Iceland gained Home Rule from Denmark in 1918, three years after the adoption of universal suffrage. This also supports Hall’s view that “nationalism has historically involved separation from authoritarian polities”; in a Hirschmanian vein, Hall states, “when it is possible to have voice inside a system, exit loses its attraction.”101 Yet the institutionalization of voice through the establishment of substate arrangements, which engender loyalty, or the third element of Hirschman’s model,102 may make exit more, not less, likely by setting up a rival locus of power. Hudson Meadwell suggests that the peculiar history of state-making in Canada, which bequeathed to Quebec a form of “consociational federalism,” has provided the contemporary independence movement with an unparalleled resource from which to launch its sovereignty project.103 The claim made here is that, by facilitating voice through the establishment of substate structures, liberal regimes may not prove ultimately successful in preventing the secession of minority groups. However, they do exert a profound influence in shaping the character of the nationalism of both majority and minority groups. So both the nature of the regime and the institutional design of states are central to the thesis presented in this book. Moreover, the empirical research contained in the chapters that follow suggests that three political variables related to both are key to understanding nationalism in Scotland and Quebec during this period: empire, state, and civil society. Orthodox definitions of empire usually contain some reference to the domination of periphery by core. Michael Doyle defines an empire as “a system of interaction between two political entities, one of which, the dominant metropole, exerts political control over the internal and external policy – the effective sovereignty – of the other, the subordinate periphery”; while Suny’s looser definition states that “an empire is a composite state in which the centre dominates a periphery to the advantage of the centre.”104 This was certainly the pattern among modern European overseas empires, such as Britain’s, where a metropolitan centre ruled over a colonial periphery, rather than the more ancient territorially continuous empires.105 Yet it does not quite capture the relationship between Britain and its Dominions, including Canada. While Canadian sovereignty rested with the Westminster Parliament, Canada enjoyed, in practice, substantial autonomy in the conduct of its internal and, increasingly, external

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affairs. The relationship between Britain and Canada was characterized as much by negotiation as by “domination”: British governments largely sought agreement on, rather than the imposition of, imperial policy. Moreover, British policies toward its territories were not uniform. For this reason, Lieven’s more flexible definition, “a specific polity with a clearly demarcated territory exercising sovereign authority over its subjects who are, to varying degrees, under its direct administrative supervision,” is adopted here.106 Britain’s was a peculiar empire. As far as its “white dominions” (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and, after 1905, South Africa) were concerned it was a “liberal empire,”107 which sought agreement on, rather than the imposition of, imperial policy as it affected them. Nevertheless, British governments, as chapter 4 charts, increasingly sought to govern its empire in order to meet the needs of its own national interest. This was opposed by the Liberal response of the Young Scots, and the Nationalist response of the Nationalistes. Britain is often thought to be the very hallmark of a unitary state, yet its relationship to Scotland often took a form that was decidedly federal.108 The political philosopher John Stuart Mill used the example of the union between Scotland and England to demonstrate that a state need not proclaim itself federal in order to exhibit federal qualities: “a people may have the desire, and the capacity, for a closer union than one merely federal, while yet their local peculiarities and antecedents render considerable diversities desirable in the details of their government.”109 By avoiding the “mania for uniformity” prevalent on continental Europe, Britain proved that “a totally different system of law, and very different administrative institutions, may exist in two portions of a country without being any obstacle to legislative union”; in other settings such a distinctive legal system would require a distinctive government.110 Canada, too, exemplified these federal tendencies, yet its federalism was differently expressed: consociational arrangements were evident in the operation of the Province of Canada and, again, following the constitution of Canada as a federation in 1867.111 Preston King provides a useful distinction between federalism and federation. While federalism relates to an ideology or an ethos, federation refers simply to a type of political institution.112 William H. Riker’s classic study of federalism illustrates the importance of this distinction. Riker suggested that the definition of federalism is unproblematic since it is a “precisely definable and easily recognizable

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constitutional artefact” demarked as it is by specific institutions: “a government of the federation and a set of governments of the member units, in which both kinds of governments rule over the same territory and people and each kind has the authority to make some decisions independently of the other.”113 Yet Riker’s classification of Canada, the United States, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union as federal systems based on their possession of a set of institutions, and not on the actual practice of these states, suggests that these institutions are poor indicators of the practice of federalism.114 William S. Livingstone115 is critical of those juridical conceptions of federalism that underplay the actual operation of institutions: “whether a constitutional structure may properly be called federal, depends not so much on the arrangement of the institutions within it as it does on the manner in which these institutions are employed.”116 Properly understood, federalism is actually a sociological phenomenon, a way of articulating and protecting the federal qualities of a particular society, where diversity is grouped territorially.117 This territorial condition is clearly met by the case of Scots in Scotland (a people sharing a common set of institutions) but is more complicated by the case of French Canadians in Canada (a people sharing a common language).118 The condition is, however, met in the Province of Quebec, where French Canadians constituted a clear majority of the population. The failure of the Canadian federal system to correspond to Canadian federal society was a key feature of this period and will be discussed in chapter 6. Moreover, there is a certain fluidity in the life of institutions not captured by the institutions-based account.119 A set of institutions may operate in a manner unintended by its originators and the successful operation of institutions may change over time: institutions successful in one period need not have the same success in another.120 As the next chapter documents, the Union governments in Canada in the 1840s and 1850s exemplify the first tendency, while the increasing strain on the local state in late nineteenth-century Scotland exemplifies the latter tendency. In Livingstone’s view, federalism represents a compromise between the competing demands for autonomy and integration. The resulting constitution, therefore, will reflect their relative strength: “the federal system is thus an institutionalization of the compromise between these two demands.” Federalism is thus a relative and not an absolute concept, a matter of degree and not of kind. The tools that federal systems employ to

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manage diversity similarly vary,121 and they are, in part, a reflection of the degree to which societies are segmented. Thus, there is no “a priori list of the characteristics of a federal system.”122 In deeply divided plural societies, practices and conventions may take the form of a consociation. This is to utilize Arend Lijphart’s description of power-sharing arrangements in the Netherlands. Consociations are marked primarily through the existence of elite cooperation, a feature of each of the four key components that consociations possess: government by a grand coalition is the most important, all groups are represented in a cabinet, a council/committee, or among top office-holders; a mutual veto; proportionality in political representation, in the division of government employment, and in spending; and high degree of internal autonomy of groups.123 Canada, as a federation from 1867 and as a unitary province prior to 1867, possesses elements of each of these components, allowing Lijphart to describe it as a “semi-consociational democracy.”124 Lijphart suggests that the possession of a federation is particularly conducive to the success of consociations: that is, where the political boundaries of federations mirror the territorial concentration of distinct groups.125 The degree to which this was the case was a contentious point in Canada during the period under study. In summary, Livingstone and Riker offer distinct conceptions of federalism. Riker’s definition is based exclusively on institutions. His was an examination of federations rather than of federalism. In contrast, Livingstone’s focus is on the practice of federalism, which may or may not be expressed through a formal federation. The advantage of Livingstone’s approach is that it focuses attention on how societies are actually governed rather than on how formal constitutions imply that they are. Thus federalism, broadly defined, is an ethos that can be expressed either formally as a federation through the establishment of a set of institutions or through a series of practices and conventions; these may take the form of a consociation, a specific set of power-sharing arrangements. It is this formulation that will be utilised to understand the political development of the British and Canadian states in chapters 5 and 6. In addition to empire and state, the third political variable useful to understanding nationalisms in Scotland and Quebec is civil society. Adam Ferguson’s An Essay on the History of Civil Society was among the first works to specify civil society as a sphere distinct from the state. Ferguson located its emergence in the transition from

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agrarian to commercial society, or in Ferguson’s terms in the transition between “rude society” and “polished society.”126 But the term itself has a fairly long pedigree, and for Krishan Kumar this is precisely the problem. Kumar argues that we cannot simply uproot a term from its theoretical and historical context given the different meanings conferred upon the term by writers as diverse as Aristotle, Ferguson, Hegel, Marx, de Tocqueville, and Gramsci.127 The suggestion here is that the term cannot sustain life outside of its philosophical womb, that it is not capable of an empirical life of its own. Moreover, Kumar suggests that concepts such as democracy, citizenship, and constitutionalism are adequate to the task at hand with no need to invoke civil society.128 In Liberal Nationalisms, I dispute both those claims, arguing that civil society is not replaceable by liberal democratic concepts, but rather it complements them, and moreover it is an empirical concept, with sufficient rigor to aid an understanding of the social relationships among individuals outside the realm of the state. Christopher Bryant gives a clear and measured sociological definition when he states, “civil society refers to a space or arena between household and state, other than the market, which affords possibilities of concerted action and social self-organization.”129 This provides a good starting point. But the exclusion of the market is curious, particularly since historically civil society was closely related to the emergence of commercial society: guilds were part and parcel of urban civil relations in the early modern era, and chambers of commerce, initially at least, sought political space within which to pursue their commercial interests. During this period Francophone businessmen sought exactly that in Quebec.130 The more general point is that there remains some debate as to precisely which institutions should be considered as constituting civil society.131 This has led Tom Nairn, not without some justification, to state that the institutions of civil society are “sometimes as open as a Ouija board to creative interpretation.”132 The problem is real but not insurmountable. Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, holds that both “civil associations” and “political associations” constitute civil life,133 civil associations including private economic (commercial or industrial) interests. Chapter 7 will examine groups within which businessmen organized, together with the emergence of labour organizations. In contrast, political associations were more ambiguous

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and covered a much wider assortment of groups and institutions. Tocqueville mixes private bodies, such as churches and literary associations, with public bodies, such as town councils. This, too, mirrors the complexity of social relationships themselves. Institutions and groups as diverse as churches, the systems of education and law, local government, and the press, together with associations representing women and immigrant groups, will also be examined in chapter 7. Autonomy from the state is a key feature of these associations. This does not mean that the state is unimportant, but rather that a stable state structure is fundamental to the successful development of civil society, through its role as neutral arbiter and enforcer of law.134 So a word of caution concerning the inclusion of local government and the legal system needs to be offered. They can only be thought of as constituting civil society so long as they remain autonomous of either the central or the provincial state: when they merely do the bidding of the state (central or provincial) they cannot properly be thought of as constituting civil society. Thus the possession of autonomy is a key marker of the groups and institutions being reviewed. Bryant’s characterization of the institutions of civil society, but with the inclusion of the market, will be utilised. So, while autonomous social self-organization is crucial to the existence of a civil society, on its own, it is not sufficient. In order for a society to become civil, membership of the groups themselves must be both voluntary and overlapping: groups cannot act as “social cages.” To ensure this, there must be a prevailing ethos that values the individual or, as Khilnani puts it, a conception of the self that is “mutable.” Individuals must be allowed to pick and choose their affiliations.135 In Ernest Gellner’s phrase, civil society must be premised on “modularity”: “the forging of links which are effective even though they are flexible, specific, instrumental.”136 Tolerance, or civility, is required. Bryant refers to civility as “a cool concept”: “civility – the equitable treatment of others as fellow citizens however different their interests and sensibilities – notably in cities … does not require us to like those whom we deal with civilly.”137 Therefore, civil society, through its practice of civility and the openness of its institutions, provides a means of managing difference.138 The degree to which this was contested in Scotland and Quebec is a key feature of chapter 7. It is this conception of civil society, not only as a form of social self-organization but also as a practice of tolerance, that is adopted in the chapters that follow.

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This chapter has navigated a course through the burgeoning literature on nationalism, which views nations as contingent and modern, and therefore subject to the imaginings of nationalists, and indeed of nationals. Nationalism is conceived as an entirely modern phenomenon, related to the social transformation ushered in by industrial society, but with its origins in the formation of the modern state. The ebb and flow of political nationalism can be directly attributable to the actions of the state and, in the context of Scotland and Quebec during the period under study, the role of empire, state, and civil society. The character of that nationalism is related to the nature of the regime and to the establishment of a liberal settlement in Britain and Canada.

liberal nationalism John Hall argues that “nationalism is … essentially labile, characteristically absorbing the flavours of the historical forces with which it interacts.”139 This is precisely the view adopted here. In the era under study, nationalism emerged in interaction with liberalism in Scotland and Quebec. Young Scots and Nationalistes were nationalists with backgrounds in Liberal politics. Yet is nationality compatible with liberty (the question implicit in the title of this chapter)? Scholarship within normative political theory suggests that it is. Moreover, it argues not only that the “principle of nationality” is worth defending on liberal grounds but also that a conjunction of liberalism and nationalism is possible.140 This literature has a particular relevance for the present study, given the composition of the nationalists under study. Liberalism provides a worldview, an ideology, at the centre of which is the individual: “[L]iberalism considers individuals, seen as the seat of moral value, of equal worth; it is held to follow from this that the individual should be able to choose his or her own ends in life.”141 Liberalism purports to be morally neutral about those ends, but not that a choice exists. Indeed, liberty is at the very core of liberalism: “[F]irst and foremost, Liberalism appears as the recognition of a fact, the fact of liberty.”142 Liberal nationalists have a similar conception of nation, arguing that a degree of choice exists with regard to membership of a nation, and as to how a nation should be expressed. However, there are competing conceptions of liberalism, and not just nationalism, at play here.143 Will Kymlicka argues that

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there are several versions of liberalism available that are compatible with group-differentiated citizenship.144 These versions seek to reconcile what on the one hand Charles Taylor refers to as the “politics of equal dignity,” in which what is established is meant to be universally the same since all humans are equally worthy of respect, and on the other hand the “politics of difference,” in which recognition for a group’s uniqueness is sought in appeals to “acknowledge specificity.”145 These conceptions underlie attempts to reconcile liberalism and nationalism. Four arguments are identified here. The first, the utilitarian argument, is associated with the liberal theorist John Stuart Mill, who famously discussed the relationship between nationality and liberty. Mill argued strongly that the “sentiment of nationality” must not outweigh the “love of liberty.”146 Nevertheless, he stated bluntly that “it is in general a necessary condition of free institutions, that the boundaries of governments should coincide in the main with those of nationalities.”147 Where this is not the case, “[F]ree institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities … [because] the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist.”148 But Mill recognized that where different nationality groups are so intermingled as to make separation unthinkable “there is no course open to them but to make a virtue of necessity, and reconcile themselves to living together under equal rights and laws”; where the nationality group was of an “inferior and more backward portion of the human race,” assimilation was thought advantageous; for example, Mill favoured the absorption of Scottish Highlanders within the British nation on these grounds.149 The suggestion that only a homogenous culture is compatible with liberal democracy is too bleak. A second, the quasi-communitarian argument, suggests that nationality is conducive to the good working of democracy. In David Miller’s words, “it helps to foster the mutual understanding and trust that makes democratic citizenship possible.”150 This is similar to Charles Taylor’s view that nationalism is functional for democracy by providing it with “a strong sense of identification with the polity, and a willingness to give of one’s self for its sake.”151 This sense of recognition and trust can also “accommodate the inevitable disagreements and dissent about conceptions of the good in modern society.”152 Although, as Tamir suggests, it is questionable whether shared national identity always provides a value free basis on which

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liberalism can be built, it is true that national identity does not require shared values.153 Yet democracies that fail to adequately provide for the articulation of minority groups may themselves face internal challenges. A third argument holds that cultural expression is itself a liberal right. This is captured by Kymlicka’s celebrated phrase, “multicultural citizenship.” Choice is key if nationalism is to be reconciled with liberalism. Yael Tamir argues that, while circumscribed, cultural memberships, including membership of nations, “are not beyond choice.”154 It is no more outside reflection and choice than other elements, which constitute the individual’s sense of self, for example religious or political affiliations. Secondly, the principle of selfdetermination, which is central to nationalism, entails that nations, like individuals, should be free to chart their own course. But for liberal nationalists this principle can be invoked “providing the members of the nation consent to such self-determination, and providing they grant the same right to those who do not regard themselves as part of the nation concerned.”155 Moreover, the right to selfdetermination need not imply the creation of a nation-state, since there are a number of other options available, such as federalism and consociationalism, through which the nation can be expressed freely and equally. Therefore, nationality can be consistent with liberty. And yet a fourth argument is offered by this examination of the YSS and the Nationalistes. These groups suggest ways in which liberalism and nationalism are in service of each other. This accords with a particularly powerful argument advanced by Charles Taylor, which concerns the failure of democracies to adequately accommodate national minorities. It is worth quoting Taylor at length: A minority group can come to feel that (a) their way of seeing things is different from the majority and (b) that this is generally not understood or recognised by the majority, that consequently (c) the majority is not willing to alter the terms of the debate to accommodate this difference, and therefore that the minority is being systematically unheard. Their voice cannot really penetrate the public debate. They are not really part of the deliberative unit.156 It was something like this set of circumstances that propelled the Young Scots and Nationalistes. While their sense of nation incorporated many of the constitutional principles of liberalism,157 the

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Young Scots and Nationalistes sought ways in which liberalism could better accommodate the interests of Scots and French Canadians in Quebec. Their conclusion: for liberalism to work better it had to take a national form. Yael Tamir offers this theoretical conception of liberal nationalism: [T]he main characteristic of liberal nationalism is that it fosters national ideals without losing sight of other human values against which national ideals ought to be weighed. Liberal nationalism thus celebrates the particularity of culture together with the universality of human rights, the social and cultural embeddedness of individuals together with their personal autonomy.158 This also nicely captures well the nationalists’ struggles to reconcile the particularism of their nationalism with the universalism of liberalism, struggles examined in the chapters that follow.

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2 Empire, State, and Civil Society at the Fin de siècle

Political rule in early twentieth-century Scotland and Quebec was characterized by “multilevel governance.” That is to say, the institutions that governed were tiered. The British Empire was a supranational entity, ruled from the Imperial Parliament in London; there, imperial foreign and defence affairs (and the domestic affairs of many of its colonies) were decided; the unitary British state (sharing its parliament with the running of the Empire) and the federal Canadian state (and its provinces) legislated domestic affairs; and finally, a considerable array of powers lay within the purview of civil society, and, in particular, the Catholic Church in Quebec held important social functions. Changes in rule by empire, state, and civil society not only elicited nationalist responses in Scotland and Quebec, but these institutions were also instrumental in shaping the character of the resulting nationalisms. This chapter provides an overview of the immediate institutional context in which empire, state, and civil society operated, and of the pressures that they faced.

t h e t w i l i g h t o f t h e pa x b r i ta n n i c a From its inception Britain was not just a state, it was an imperium. As the title of Robertson’s book suggests, for Scots the Treaty of Union of 1707, which united the parliaments of Scotland and England, was also “a Union for Empire”: the Scottish ruling class was convinced that union with England would open England’s lucrative overseas trade to Scottish merchants and notables. This proved to be the case. Scots immediately embraced this imperial dimension. In little more than a decade after the signing of the Union

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Treaty, Scots were disproportionately active in the service of the East India Company.1 They became, in Tom Nairn’s apt phrase, “the junior partner in the new Rome.”2 Partnership is key to the Scots’ conception of their role within the Empire. The British Empire had a profound impact on how Scots viewed their relationship with England. The English, like the Scots, were merely a component of the greater whole, no longer the ones who ran the whole show. It allowed Scots to feel themselves on an equal footing with the English in a way that was impossible in the island kingdom. Therefore the Empire provided an opportunity not only for profits but also for self-respect.3 Linda Colley notes that in terms of language the Empire has always been referred to as the British Empire and not the English Empire.4 Scots’ disproportionate involvement in the Empire, as bureaucrats, soldiers, missionaries, teachers, engineers, and doctors, gave rise to a feeling that the British Empire also constituted a Scottish Empire.5 Certain locations within the British Empire, where Scottish influence was most obvious, seemed to justify this sense, notably in Northwest India, Malawi, and Canada. In these three areas Scots had been successful in exporting aspects of their civil society, for example Scots’ merchant houses were entrenched in Montreal and the Maritimes in Canada. Scottish influence in Canada was augmented by emigration: despite the fact that there were seven times more English as Scots in Britain, as many Scots as English emigrated to Canada between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the Second World War.6 Moreover, a certain strain of Scottish nationalism took pride in the achievements of Scots within the Empire. The Scottish Patriot published several series of articles that focused on Scots within the Empire, with titles such as “The Scot Abroad” and “Scottish Regiments in the British Service.”7 In contrast, French Canadians had a particular distinction within the British Empire: they were Britain’s first overseas imperial minority.8 The 1763 Treaty of Paris, which brought the Seven Years War with France to a close, marked a turning point in the character and composition of Britain’s overseas empire. Hitherto, its population had been predominantly Protestant and Anglophone based around the Thirteen American Colonies, but with the conquest of Canada, Britain acquired Quebec and its population of seventy thousand French Catholics.9 Ironically, just as French Canadians found themselves subordinated within the British Empire, Scots were taking

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a more prominent role in its running.10 It was a Scotsman, James Murray, who became the first governor of the newly conquered Quebec. The award of this post to a Scot appears to have been a particular irritant to John Wilkes, a self-styled English patriot, who had himself strenuously lobbied for the post. The incident fuelled Wilkes’s belief, not without a degree of truth, that Scots were acquiring disproportionate influence and power within Great Britain and its Empire.11 French Canadians largely did not share in the supranational enterprise that was the British Empire. Language was an obvious barrier. The Catholic Church was another: it was keen to ensure that its influence was maintained and to this end held a firm grip over its French Canadian flock, disavowing the rampant materialism of the “Anglo-Saxon” world (both British and American) and the irreligiosity of modern France. Moreover, the Nationalistes were fond of pointing out that French Canadians were exclusive Canadians since their first allegiance was to Canada, in contrast to British Canadians, who regarded Britain as home and whose first loyalty was to the Empire.12 While French Canadians shared a cultural and intellectual bond with France, this was not the equivalent of British Canadians’ strong emotional attachment to Britain and its empire.13 Ralph Heintzman argues that it was a very different “empire” that loomed large over the minds of the French Canadian elite: the “Empire of the Saint Lawrence.”14 The wheat boom, which began at the end of the 1890s, confirmed the pre-eminent status of Montreal. It was through the port of Montreal that wheat from the Canadian west was exported to Europe. Heintzman argues that this economic boom had a powerful impact on French Canadians. It was Henri Bourassa who sought to articulate French Canadians’ widening perception of economic space, and its corresponding expansion of political and cultural space, through his theory of the cultural compact of Confederation.15 But Heintzman gets it the wrong way round: it was the expansion of political rather than economic space following the Confederation of 1867 that contributed to the widening horizons of the French Canadian elite beyond the confines of the Quebec. Moreover, he seriously underestimates the effect that the marginal role played by French Canadian businessmen in this enterprise had on French Canadians, and particularly on the Nationalistes. There is, therefore, a striking contrast between the means by which Scotland and Quebec were incorporated within the Empire – a

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voluntary patrician agreement in Scotland’s case; a military conquest in the case of Quebec – and in the way in which they perceived their relationship to the British Empire: a means of advancement for Scots and a source of blockage for French Canadians, but one that nevertheless provided French Canadians with an arena, Canada (following Confederation), through which their political and cultural influence could potentially expand. Empire loomed large for nationalists in the early twentieth century. The British Empire in 1900 was a formidable entity: it covered 12  million square miles and comprised around a quarter of the world’s population, and in just the previous three decades it had added 4.25  million square miles and 66 million people.16 Yet Britain’s pre-eminent economic status was being eroded by competition, most notably from the United States and Germany. Britain’s relative economic decline was clear: in 1880 Britain accounted for 22.9 percent of total world manufacturing, by 1913 it had fallen to 13.6 percent; similarly Britain accounted for 23.2 percent of world trade in 1880, this too had fallen to just 14.1 percent in the years 1911–13.17 The demands of providing security for such a global concern was also taking its toll: Britain’s Royal Navy could not be strong everywhere, and its army was a relatively small volunteer force compared with the mass conscript armies of continental Europe.18 These weaknesses were exacerbated as Germany sought to match Britain’s naval supremacy. In order to make sense of the British Empire in the period between the Boer War and the First World War it is necessary to first understand Britain’s place in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century international relations. Some controversy surrounds the conceptualization of Britain’s position during this period. One school of thought suggests that Britain performed a hegemonic role. Michael Doyle, Robert Gilpin, Paul Kennedy, and Niall Ferguson exemplify this position.19 Gilpin views Britain’s leadership role in the international gold standard between 1870 and 1914 as exemplifying its hegemonic role. This “benign” measure served the interests of the advanced economies of the era: it did not favour the less advanced economies and the social classes who bore the brunt of unemployment (an accepted component of the system). Gilpin argues that only Britain had the economic and military capacity to make the gold standard work. The net result was that economic stability and stable currency exchange benefited Britain’s rivals – the United States, Germany,

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and France – as much as it did Britain itself. But by the end of the nineteenth-century Britain’s relative hegemonic power was in decline as the result of the rise of these new industrial powers and of the very conditions that Britain’s leadership had fostered.20 In addition to this economic role, Britain also provided a valuable security role. Michael Doyle provides an interesting theoretical approach to explain the increased military competition that Britain faced from the 1880s. Using Mancur Olson’s theory of collective action, he argues that by policing and protecting world trade routes the British Royal Navy provided a collective good: security. Britain was able and willing to do this because, unlike the continental European powers, naval power was its central means of defence. Britain’s economic superiority also meant that openness was not a threat to its industry and exports. However, as trade competition increased, and as the gap between the cost and benefit of providing collective security narrowed, Britain had an incentive to close the door to its competitors. They in turn had an incentive to seek exclusive colonial rule using their existing military power and to offset costs through the use of tariffs and increasing national trade.21 Patrick O’Brien suggests that it was precisely Britain’s overblown military expenditure that contributed to its economic ruin. O’Brien echoes the views of the radical Liberal critic of imperialism, J.A. Hobson, who influenced both Young Scots and Nationalistes alike. Imperialism was in Hobson’s view a costly obstacle to the required structural changes at home.22 Yet such arguments often fell on stony ground in Scotland and English-speaking (though not Frenchspeaking) Canada, since the possession of territory was thought to ensure a ready supply of resources. If Britain gave up its claim to territories its rivals would surely move in.23 Moreover, the historical sociologists John Hall and Michael Mann question the validity of this thesis, since comparative analysis with Britain’s main rivals (France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the United States) reveals that Britain’s military expenditure was in fact quite normal.24 Mann convincingly challenges the hegemonic role thesis, arguing that Britain did not attain the position of an outright hegemon: in a macro-historical perspective it was the West and Western civilization that was hegemonic, not any single state, and the West itself was a “multi-power-actor civilization.” Britain assumed only a “specialized near hegemony.”25 That is: it was a “near hegemony” since, while never a military hegemon, Britain was briefly an economic hegemon.

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Moreover, its “near hegemony” was specialized. Firstly, Britain’s hegemony was regionally restricted: Britain gave up continental ambitions for global naval dominance. Secondly, its hegemony was sartorially specialized. In industry, Britain’s lead was initially massive, but it proved short-lived as others imitated and caught up, yet in the realm of “commercial capitalism” Britain’s role was longer lived. Thus, Britain was only the leading power; translational rules were established in negotiation with other powers. During the financial crises of 1890 and 1907, the Bank of England had insufficient reserves to secure international confidence, and it relied upon the Bank of France and the Russian government to loan it gold and purchase sterling.26 According to Mann, the peace and order that prevailed in Europe between 1815 and 1880 was not the result of a single hegemon but of three power networks: the diplomatically negotiated Concert of Powers on the continent of Europe, which followed Napoleon’s defeat; the specialized near hegemony of the British Empire; and the diffusion of transnational capitalism. 27 It was a decline in all three that brought tensions after 1880. Thus, as John Hobson argues, the British Empire was not a “weary Titan,” politically and economically exhausted by its hegemonic role; rather it remained a “wary Titan,” avoiding hegemony in order to preserve peace.28 These views capture the complexity of Britain’s role within the international realm. Yet as Britain faced the erosion of its specialized near hegemony a more “predatory” period is discernable in the Pax Britannica. Two periods are apparent in the present Pax Americana: in the immediate post Second World War era the United States behaved as a benign hegemon, in which its interests were subordinated to the political and economic well being of its allies (although arguably still in the USA’s own self-interest). However, from the 1960s its behaviour can more appropriately be characterized as predatory: taking advantage of its overwhelmingly powerful position for self-interested reasons.29 In some ways the USA’s predecessor, Britain, had followed a similar course. The 1880s mark the zenith of Britain’s imperial power. It was from this time that British elites began to perceive that its strategic interests were being threatened both militarily and economically. This is clearly evident in the “new imperialism” and the “Scramble for Africa,” which defined the era. During this period territories that had constituted Britain’s “informal empire” were formally incorporated not to keep its rivals out but for fear that its rivals would exclude British trade.30 This

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reality influenced British domestic and imperial policy throughout this period, and it gave rise to predatory policies, reflecting a transition “from arrogance to anxiety” in British political thinking.31 These policies, and the response of Young Scots and Nationalistes, will be examined in some detail in chapter 4.

f e d e r a l i s m i n b r i ta i n a n d c a n a da The changing domestic governance of Britain and Canada, too, prompted demands for reform by Young Scots and Nationalistes. Lindsay Paterson argues that “[T]he purpose of the [British] central state [in the nineteenth century] was to run the Empire; within the UK (and indeed within the Empire more widely) the government functioned by a system that was, in effect, federal.”32 It was this “federal system” that was under strain in the early twentieth century. Scotland’s union with England in 1707 left intact an extraordinary array of institutions normally associated with independent statehood. Scotland was, in Tom Nairn’s choice phrase, “a decapitated national state.”33 At the core of these institutions were the “holy trinity” of law, religion, and education, as well as a distinctive system of local government. It is these institutions that are usually credited with forming the backbone of a proto-Scottish political system. They are key to understanding the governance of Scotland. A second point is worth emphasizing: the Union was voluntary. Without question bribery and intimidation were widespread, yet there was substantial support for Union among Scotland’s Lowland elites.34 This allowed Scottish elites to portray Britain as a joint venture, marked by equality rather than exploitation.35 The aim here is to establish the changing means by which Scotland was governed from the Union to the period under study. Despite the absence of a parliament, eighteenth-century Scotland retained a considerable amount of autonomy, free from Westminster interference. Its governance rested on the management of Scottish affairs. The manager, the Duke of Argyll (for about fifteen years following 1746) and, above all, Henry Dundas (from Argyll’s fall until the end of the century), was responsible for securing the loyalty of the Scottish lobby at Westminster, advising the monarch and English politicians on Scottish matters and exercising considerable powers of patronage within Scotland. He was also able to initiate reform. Substantial autonomy lay at the local level: in rural areas, a system

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with the local sheriff at the head, together with commissioners of supply, representing landowners and the parish, governed by the Kirk Session, prevailed; in towns, however, the royal burghs, selfgoverning and self-selecting in their membership, had a wide array of powers that affected town dwellers’ daily lives – education, morality, health, birth, marriages, and death. This arrangement has led Paterson to suggest that Scottish local government would not have been much different had the Union never taken place.36 Scotland was, therefore, effectively managed on behalf of the British state37 through a de facto policy of “benign neglect.” It was notably the Scottish manager who was entrusted with the pacification of the country following the Jacobite rebellion of 1745–46.38 Nineteenth-century Scotland, too, possessed considerable local autonomy. Graeme Morton writes: “Politically and indeed practically, Westminster’s relationship to Scottish life was a tangential one, lacking real influence in the day-to-day governing of society.”39 The local state and an array of voluntary societies governed urban Scotland. Morton continues: “Almost any problem posed by the twin strains of rapid urbanization and industrialization could be met at the local level by either the local authorities empowered by Parliament or by one or other specialist voluntary societies.”40 Thus, mid-nineteenth-century Scottish nationalism, as exemplified by the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights (NAVSR) or Scottish Rights Association, eschewed an overtly political nationalism, leading one commentator to characterize it as “romantic and radical.”41 But Morton convincingly establishes that the Scottish Rights Association’s use of romantic rhetoric was a means of encouraging resistance to increasing political centralization, thereby preserving the autonomy of the local state governed by a distinctly Scottish bourgeoisie.42 The political context changed in the late nineteenth century however: post-1870 there was a growing formal political recognition of Scotland’s distinctiveness.43 The Convention of Royal Burghs led a successful campaign to re-establish the office of secretary for Scotland in 1885,44 and in 1887 a corresponding Scottish Office took over central government’s role in the administration of local government, education, social policy, and law in Scotland.45 In addition, the Scotch Education Department had been established in 1872. The secretary for Scotland, who became a cabinet member in 1892, had little real power; he was not a fully-fledged secretary of State, and his

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salary and small staff reflected this.46 It was only in 1912 that he gained official precedence over the lord advocate.47 The post had the unintended result that Scottish parliamentary business came more fully under the control of Westminster, given that the majority party at Westminster filled the post, irrespective of that party’s strength in Scotland.48 The Scottish Office had three primary functions: to provide the Edinburgh boards and other Scottish institutions with access to parliamentary time; to liaise with English and UK departments to ensure that Scottish interests were reflected in legislation; and to undertake certain law and order functions previously administered by the Home Office. Both it and the Scotch Education Department were headquartered at Dover House, in London. Though in the latter case decisions continued to be made by local school boards. The formation of the Scottish Home Rule Association (SHRA) in 1886 reflected this change in the governance of Scotland and represented a shift in Scottish nationalism’s political orientation and demands. As of the late nineteenth century, motions and amendments in support of Scottish Home Rule Bills began to be brought before the Westminster parliament: between 1889 and 1895 seven were brought before the House; three were in the form of motions in support of Federal Home Rule; only the first Scottish Home Rule motion failed to secure a majority of Scottish members. The SHRA wanted the creation of Scottish Parliament in order to better represent the wishes of Scottish opinion. In contrast, the NAVSR had been a defensive movement: “its members were reactive rather than progressive. They did not want a Scottish Parliament, they demanded instead the maintenance of a locally governed civil society where the state kept its distance and removed its functionaries.”49 Further changes regarding the governance of Scotland were made during the period under study. In 1899 the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act was passed, and in 1907 the Scottish Grand Committee was established. The former enabled local government and others to have an enquiry made in Scotland by commissioners sitting in Scotland, and not London. The latter set up a committee of all Scottish members of parliament (plus fifteen other members of parliament) as a forum for discussion, though without any power over expenditure or administration. Both reflect the ad hoc way in which Scotland gradually gained political recognition at Westminster.50 The organization of political parties further testifies to the federal nature of the governance of Scotland: “Scottish Liberalism remained

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a self-contained phenomenon, not least organizationally.”51 The Liberal Party, which dominated much of nineteenth-century Scotland, was organized on a Scottish basis. In 1881 the East and North of Scotland Liberal Association and the West and South of Scotland Liberal Association united to form the Scottish Liberal Association (SLA). Unlike the Welsh Liberal Federations, which were directly linked to the (English) National Liberal Federation, the SLA retained its independence. Robbins speculates that Welsh organizational compliance may have brought Welsh Liberals greater influence in British Liberal circles,52 yet the growing influence of Scottish-based members of parliament raises doubt about this claim. This organizational independence was also apparent in the (Liberal) Unionist and Labour parties that emerged from the 1880s. Thus, from the Union to the beginning of this period Scotland was not governed uniformly. “Managed” has been a key word to describe the character of this governance. During the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth centuries the local state held sway; however, by the close of the nineteenth century the British central state was increasingly involved in Scottish affairs. This section has already noted key changes in the way Scotland was administered. What these disparate measures had in common, in effect, was recognition that Scotland constituted a distinct entity. In this sense, Britain’s governance of Scotland was in practice federal. Scots in Scotland administered Scotland’s local affairs at the local level; foreign affairs, defence, and macro-economic policy were conducted at Westminster. This view is in line with James Kellas’s argument that modern Scotland comprised, as the title of his book suggests, a distinct “Scottish political system,” combining elected, administrative, and pressure group elements.53 Yet, as chapter 5 details, signs of strain were beginning to appear in this ad hoc system of government, as Scottish business was downgraded at Westminster; in response the Young Scots pursued a Home Rule campaign. The governance of Canada, and Quebec in particular, changed significantly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Like Scotland, Quebec maintained distinctive institutions. Although a key difference is apparent: Lower Canada, and later the Province of Quebec, possessed a legislative assembly. In the immediate aftermath of the Conquest of New France in 1759, French Canadians were forbidden from holding office. Thereafter, their rights, and those of what would become the Province of Quebec, were defined by a series

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of acts passed by the Westminster parliament: the Quebec Act in 1774, the Constitution Act in 1791, the Union Act in 1840, and finally the British North America (BNA) Act of 1867.54 These acts were initially devised by British authorities seeking to govern an imperial minority, but increasingly they were implemented at the behest of Canadians themselves, culminating in the BNA Act, which laid the foundation of the modern Canadian Confederation.55 It is worth briefly reviewing these measures in order to establish the degree of autonomy enjoyed by French Canadians. The Quebec Act was crucial. It became, in effect, French Canada’s Magna Carta. It guaranteed the distinctiveness of French society: Roman Catholicism, French language and customs, the seigneurial system of land tenure, and civil law were all safeguarded. So the French enjoyed a special status both in Canada and in the wider British Empire. There was also a tacit acceptance of power-sharing, which in practice meant patronage-sharing. The Constitution Act further extended French Canadian rights by allowing Catholics to vote and hold office, rights unavailable to their co-religionists in Britain until 1829. However, an attempt was also made to solve the problem of two distinct cultures existing within the same geographic unit. The result was the division of the old Province of Quebec into predominantly English-speaking and Protestant Upper Canada (Ontario) and predominantly French and Catholic Lower Canada (Quebec), each with its own legislature and executive. Yet stability was short-lived. The structure of the colonial administration in Lower Canada mirrored the social cleavages in the colony itself – French Canadian liberal professionals dominated the representative assembly while Anglophones and “reliable” elements such as the seigneurs composed the appointed executive and legislative councils. Disaffection grew, culminating in the Patriote rebellions of 1837–38 (a corresponding rebellion also took place in Upper Canada, led by William Lyon Mackenzie). The British authorities successfully defeated the rebellions with the support of the Catholic Church.56 In the aftermath of the rebellions, the Durham Report and the Union Act of 1840 were instituted. Both were attempts to promote the assimilation of French Canadians. Indeed, the former starkly stated the cause of the rebellions: “two nations warring in the bosom of a single state.” It was “a struggle, not of principles, but of races.” Yet the Union Act is a prime example of a political settlement whose actual operation contrasted markedly from its intention. The assemblies

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of Upper and Lower Canada were abolished and replaced with a single government. Canada West and Canada East, as Upper Canada and Lower Canada were now to be called, were to send equal representatives to this body. The act effectively tipped the balance in favour of English-speaking Canadians: they constituted the smaller proportion of the population, yet Canada West was to have the same number of representatives as the more numerous and preponderantly French Canada East. But in practice the Union government was the very model of cooperation between French and English political elites, with disputes settled through negotiation and compromise: administrations were referred to by the names of the leading English and French politicians, for instance the Baldwin-Lafontaine and the Cartier-MacDonald administrations. Responsible government was granted to the colony in 1848.57 This arrangement exemplified the maxim that “institutions have a habit of serving purposes other than those for which they are designed.”58 It has led commentators, such as Kenneth McRae and S.J.R. Noel, to label this period as one characterized by “consociationalism” since it displayed many of the features associated with such accommodations: there was an accommodation between French and English-speaking governing elites, both communities enjoyed substantial autonomy, proportionality was practiced in the distribution of government offices and resources, and an informal mutual veto existed through the practice of only sustaining governments that had majorities in both Canada East and West.59 Noel suggests that the Union government, with its power-sharing and broad suffrage, was the first consociational democracy, since it was established in 1842, six years before the creation of the Swiss federation.60 The growth of the Anglophone Protestant population in Canada West brought demands for majoritarian democracy and led to political paralysis.61 The federation established by the BNA Act of 1867 was quite a different proposition. Unlike previous acts, the BNA Act was an agreement devised by colonial representatives themselves, without the participation of British authorities. How these representatives envisioned the resulting federation has been the subject of much subsequent debate. While representatives of Quebec and Ontario maintained an adherence to the cultural dualism of the old Union government, it was absent among representatives of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, who stressed the need for provincial autonomy.62 Nevertheless, the fact that the resulting settlement emerged in a federal form seems to have been

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at the behest of Quebec’s representatives. This was certainly the view of Canada’s first French Canadian prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier (1896– 1911): “It is a historical fact that without the French population of Quebec the union of the provinces of British North America would have been a legislative union; the French population of Quebec would never have consented to such a form, since that would mean its disappearance as a distinct element.”63 The new union was much larger in scope: it initially brought together the Province of Canada – Quebec (Canada East) and Ontario (Canada West) – with the predominantly English-speaking colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Crucially, French Canadians constituted only a third of the population of the new federation, resulting in effectively reduced relative strength. Moreover, Quebec’s representatives declined proportionately as new provinces were admitted. Governments were no longer headed jointly by a French Canadian and an English Canadian but by a single prime minister, while the number of cabinet posts held by Quebecers declined. The resulting constitution was in no sense a confederation, or an association of sovereign states united for limited purposes, although it is frequently referred to as such. Yet it bequeathed to Quebec a provincial assembly in which Francophone Quebecers constituted a majority.64 Moreover, and despite its appearance as a federation, the Canadian federation was initially marked by a noticeable centralizing trend under Confederation’s first prime minister, John A. MacDonald. In contrast to Scotland, political parties came under the aegis of the federal leader. The Liberal and Conservative parties were both federal and provincial organizations with close ties between both sets of politicians. The Liberal Party is a case in point. Frequently the Liberal leader deferred to his provincial lieutenants, however under Wilfrid Laurier the ultimate say on the direction taken by Liberal Party in Quebec lay with Laurier himself.65 Within Confederation, Quebec was the only majority Frenchspeaking province among the initial four provinces. The admission of British Columbia in 1871 and Prince Edward Island in 1873 confirmed Francophone Quebec’s minority status. However the Manitoba Act, which admitted Manitoba to Confederation in 1870, and the 1875 Northwest Territories Act both held out the possibility that the future expansion of the federation would be along bicultural lines: both acts ensured equal treatment between the French Catholic and English Protestant populations in the West. The

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Northwest Territories Act guaranteed the complete separation and equality of the schooling systems. These acts were, in part, responses to the first Riel rebellion of 1869–70, of which more below. These were arrangements that ensured that the resulting federation maintained something of a consociational facade. Therefore, in the two decades following Confederation there remained the possibility that a second, and perhaps even a third, province would develop along the lines of “cultural duality.”66 But in late nineteenth century two events seriously undermined attempts to establish a viable French Canadian presence in the West: the Riel affair and the Manitoba schools question. In 1885 Louis Riel, leader of the Métis (a nomadic people of mixed European and native heritage) during the 1869–70 and 1884–85 rebellions, was hanged for treason. Natives and Métis of Western Canada had rebelled against the federal government in order to protect their traditional nomadic way of life from the incursions of settlers moving west. Riel himself was of mixed Native and French Canadian origin. The feeling in Quebec was that Riel’s sentence should be commuted, while English Canada demanded his execution. Prime Minister MacDonald sided with the majority. In Quebec, Riel’s execution resulted, in the provincial election of 1886, in the first overtly nationalist provincial administration, the coalition Parti national, an alliance between the Liberal Party and dissident Conservatives, led by Honoré Mercier. Mercier’s administration was the first to openly espouse a conservative, Catholic French Canadian nationalism, which demanded that Ottawa respect provincial autonomy. In this way Quebec nationalism and provincial autonomy became entwined.67 The event was also the first indication that failure to accommodate French Canadians outside Quebec meant not only that the Canadian federation was unable to defuse French Canadian nationalism; just the opposite, it provided it with a base and a forum, in the guise of the Quebec legislative assembly, from which to develop.68 In addition, the defeat of the latest Métis rebellion cast doubt on the future of a bicultural West. The Riel affair was followed in the 1890s by the Manitoba schools question. Manitoba had previously had some success in accommodating its French and English-speaking populations. However, as immigration altered the composition of its population, dualism became expendable; it was reversed in 1890, that is, the province’s funding for separate French Catholic schools ceased.69 A dispute

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raged over the next six years between proponents and opponents of separate schools; compromise was only reached with the accession of Wilfrid Laurier to power in 1896. Brokered by Henri Bourassa among others, the Laurier-Greenway agreement merely made the original decision more palatable to the French minority. It made some provision for religious teaching at the conclusion of each day, teaching in French, and the employment of Catholic teachers where there were sufficient numbers of Catholic students. It was clear that French would not be equal to English but rather equal to “any language other than English.” In the words of Robert Brown and Ramsay Cook: “The 1870 Manitoba Act had attempted to make Manitoba the last of the old provinces; the [1890] Manitoba School Act made it the first of the new.”70 The Riel affair and the Manitoba schools question ensured that Francophone Quebecers felt threatened by events occurring outside their province and over which they were powerless. These events set the tone for subsequent events, further straining relations between Quebec and the rest-of-Canada in the first decades of the new century.71 This brief overview of the governance of Quebec, in which Canada had moved from being a consociation to a federation (although still with some consociational features), leads to a surprising initial finding: in many ways the unitary system introduced by the Union Act of 1840, but which operated in a consociational manner, appeared to be more successful at accommodating French Canadians than the federation ushered in by the BNA Act of 1867. In this light, and as chapter 6 suggests, it is possible to interpret the position of Henri Bourassa and the Nationalistes as an attempt to recapture the dualism that had characterized the Union governments and to apply it to the much wider stage of the expanding Canadian federation. Thus, in both Scotland and Quebec, it was threats to the practice of federalism, their “operational federalism,”72 that gave rise to nationalist demands for political reform.

civil society and liberal openings The growth of the urban middle class has long been associated with the diffusion of liberalism and the development of civil society. This section suggests that there was a reinforcing relationship among civil society, liberalism, and the urban middle class in Scotland and Quebec through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.

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Governance was also conducted through the institutions of civil society. In terms of social self-organization Scotland and Quebec fare well. Both possessed an array of distinctive institutions. As the previous section established, the settlements that brought an end to their formal independence, the 1707 Treaty of Union, the 1763 Treaty of Paris, and most especially the Quebec Act of 1774,73 respectively left intact, either formally or informally, institutions that ensured Scotland and Quebec retained considerable autonomy in their governance of everyday life. Crucially, there was recognition of the established Churches, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church in Canada, the distinctive legal and education systems, and local government – effectively guaranteeing the powers of local elites (the system of local government exercised through the Royal Burghs was continued in Scotland, while in Quebec the feudal system of seigneurialism was initially tolerated, abolished only in 1854). These settlements were sufficiently malleable to have left “spaces” within which new social formations could develop and maintain a distinctive national character.74 During the nineteenth century a series of boards, charities, and pressure groups were established that either addressed the distinctiveness of Scottish and Quebec society, or addressed wider issues from a Scottish or French Canadian perspective. While geography clearly favoured the autonomy of these institutions in Scotland, language played a key role in preserving the integrity of Quebec’s “distinct society.” In Montreal, both French- and English-language communities lived in relatively close proximity to one another, yet knew little of one another. This was particularly true of the English-speaking portion of the city. Canada’s Scottish-born Governor General Lord Minto wrote in 1902 that: Society there is most peculiar and difficult, full of cliques and petty jealousies, and the racial division of society absolutely distinct. I am really ashamed of the Britisher – he taboos the French entirely – he chooses to say that they are disloyal – and practically has nothing to do with them, and we found the leaders of society of both races unacquainted with each other.75 While in nineteenth-century Scotland there was a general overlap between the espousal of liberalism and support for the Liberal Party, this was not the case in Quebec. In Scotland, a liberal ethos was

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found in both the dominant Liberalism and Presbyterianism. The Liberal Party assumed dominance following the 1832 Reform Act, which had extended the franchise to the middle class. Yet it was more precisely a reflection of changing religious sensibilities. The growing numbers of dissenters, like the nonconformists in England, aligned themselves with the Liberal Party and its policy of disestablishment.76 The result was that the Liberal Party was dominant between 1832 and 1886, and it continued to dominate Scottish politics following a further extension of the franchise until 1914 (the 1900 general election was the sole exception). Ian McLeod describes what Liberal dominance meant in practice: The chief result of the overwhelming Liberal strength before 1886 was the virtual elimination of inter-party politics. Political activity and struggle was kept within the national party … While rank counted, the party stayed very open to general participation: thus problems were absorbed and dealt with. In those places where Tories never stood, and this included a great number of the burgh seats, the sole political arena was the local Liberal Association. The Liberalism of Scotland was so secure that it had a unique air of permanence.77 While this era had passed, several of its features could still be discerned in the era under study. Despite evidence to the contrary, many Liberal Party elites failed to notice its passing, infuriating the Young Scots who were frantically trying to broaden the Liberal Party’s appeal through their policies of Scottish Home Rule and social reform. In Quebec the Liberal Party’s success was more recent and fragile. An incipient radical liberalism had been dealt a near fatal blow in the first half of the nineteenth century following the defeat of the Patriote rebellions. Thereafter, radical liberalism inspired by the European Revolutions of 1848 appeared in the guise of rougisme: defined above all by its anti-clericalism, it gained a following in the 1850s and then fell into decline. Yet a more moderate liberalism was promoted outside these circles; the Conservative politician GeorgeÉtienne Cartier, in particular, promoted a liberalism that emphasized both economic development and religious toleration. Cartier tried to find a middle course between the radicalism of the rouges and the extreme conservatism of the ultramontanes, or those who strictly adhered to Catholic teaching, and took instruction directly from

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Rome. Yet, following Cartier’s death in 1873, the ultramontanes gained ascendancy within the Conservative Party in Quebec.78 Wilfrid Laurier’s Quebec City speech on political liberalism on 26 June 1877 is often considered the turning point in the fortunes of the Liberal Party. Yet Réal Bélanger points out that it was the result of at least ten years of reflection, and a synthesis of Liberal Party doctrines, rather than a new departure. The speech itself was directed against the excesses of the ultramontanes. At its heart was a distinction between British-style liberalism, which he favoured, and the revolutionary and anti-clerical European liberalism that the Catholic Church opposed.79 This was a point he made earlier on 6 June 1875 at Saint-Croix de Lotinière: I agree that there are dangerous men in Europe who present themselves as liberals, although they are liberal in name only. This is not the liberalism of my party. We are liberals as one is liberal in England [sic], we are liberals like O’Connell, John Bright and Richard Cobden. O’Connell is one of our leaders, he who so valiantly defended religion in the English [sic] Parliament; this is where we draw our doctrines, not from these so-called liberals who seek to impose their ideas by violence and bloodshed.80 This speech and the more famous 1877 speech presented a moderate liberalism entirely compatible with the Catholic Church. The speech had a profound effect, and it succeeded in transforming the perception of political liberalism in Quebec. It paved the way for a rapprochement between the Catholic Church and the Liberal Party, one exemplified by the friendship that developed between Laurier and the future Archbishop of Montreal Paul Bruchési. It signalled a compromise between the Church and elements within Quebec’s civil society, thereby entertaining a cautious acceptance of an ideology of which it had long been suspicious. In the federal election of 1896, the Church urged Catholics to vote only for candidates willing to support Catholic schools in Manitoba. Yet substantial clerical opposition was voiced against the Liberals. Despite this, the Liberals secured a majority of the popular vote in Quebec and remained in office until 1911. Indeed, in federal elections the Liberals continued to win the largest proportion of the Quebec vote through the 1920s. Laurier’s victory in 1896 also allowed the Liberals to sweep to

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power in the provincial arena the following year, where they remained until 1936 under the successive leaderships of F.-G. Marchand (1897–1900), S.-N. Parent (1900–05), Sir Lomer Gouin (1905–20), and Alexandre Taschereau (1920–36).81 Throughout the nineteenth-century liberalism, with its faith in economic progress and individual advancement, was in the ascendancy, carried by both the Conservative and Liberal parties. Yet, it was strongly challenged by those elements within the Catholic Church that emphasized traditional values and structures. Therefore, at the turn of the century the Catholic Church was frequently caught in a series of battles with Liberals, in which it sought to preserve its hegemony over Francophone Quebec society.82 It did so through the establishment of groups and institutions, which sought to “cage” its members. Civil society was the arena in which these battles were played out, and the degree to which the Church succeeded will be a key theme in chapter 7. In contrast, the role of the Church in Scotland was less problematic: to a large extent liberalism in Scotland as carried by the dominant Liberal Party was entwined with Presbyterianism. Both liberalism and civil society share a common social carrier: the urban middle class. Therefore, civil society is, in part, an urban phenomenon. Scotland and Quebec share different patterns of urbanization. Scotland’s urban character was well established: already by 1831 the greater proportion of the Scottish population was urbanized.83 In contrast, Quebec’s urban population was proportionately smaller, yet this should not overshadow the fact that it was rapidly urbanizing: in 1880 22.8 percent of its population was urban, growing to 38.8 percent in 1900 and 48.4 percent in 1910.84 Quebec was no more rural than its neighbouring province, Ontario. In 1911 the percentage of the total labour force found in agriculture was almost identical – 31.3 percent in Quebec and 31 percent in Ontario – and in absolute numbers Ontario’s agricultural labour force was a third larger.85 Civil society is also a reflection of the density of an urban middle class. The middle class were “culture builders.” During the nineteenth century they were responsible for a change in attitudes toward time, nature, the home, and notions of health, cleanliness, and sexuality.86 The development of this middle-class culture in the private realm had clear implications for the public realm. An obvious example is that the changing view of nature led to the demand for the establishment of ordered green spaces in cities: in 1872 the City of

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Montreal expropriated the Parc du Mont-Royal to be developed by the renowned US landscape architect Fredrick Olmsted.87 Moreover, the possession of this distinctive middle-class culture allowed the bourgeoisie or middle class to define itself “as a class that was fit to lead because of its many virtues: its high moral standards, its selfdiscipline and moderation, its thrift and rationality, its firm belief in science and progress.”88 As Davidoff and Hall argue, religion frequently bridged the gap between home life and the public associational life, which in turn provided the basis for the emergence of civil society.89 In other words, the urban middle class were also “civil society builders.” Morton’s account of the relationship between the urban middle class and civil society in mid-nineteenth-century Edinburgh is particularly enlightening in this regard: “[P]ublic life became structured by a series of philanthropic and voluntary societies by a class creating its own self-definition.”90 More generally, Scottish figures reveal that individuals with middle-class occupations as a percentage of the occupied population were on the increase: between 1861 and 1911 the proportion grew from 21.6 percent to 25.1 percent. The percentages of the middle-class population as a proportion of the population in Scotland’s four major cities are particularly instructive: Edinburgh scored highest with 37 percent, followed by Aberdeen (30.4 percent), Glasgow (27.6 percent), and Dundee (17.8 percent). In all four cities middle-class growth had benefited from the growth in the industrial and service sectors. Scotland’s middle class differed from that of England’s by the degree to which it was concentrated in a few large cities.91 Urban growth in Quebec was even more skewed. Montreal led the way: in 1901 the urban population on the island of Montreal was 52.9 percent of the total urban population of Quebec, in 1911 the figure had grown to 56.2 percent. Although less rapid than in Montreal, urban growth was a general phenomenon. Quebec City and its suburbs were firmly established as the second city in terms of population. But Quebec possessed no middle-sized cities, the remaining urban centres, such as Hull and Sherbrooke, which overtook Trois-Rivières during this period, were relatively small in comparison with Montreal and Quebec City. As in Scotland, urban growth and the corresponding growth in the middle class were related to industrial and service sector (financial institutions, administrative services, hospitals, colleges, and universities) growth.92 In Montreal,

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as in Edinburgh, the middle class also sought to stamp its authority on the city through its philanthropy, in cultural and charitable intuitions and, perhaps most obviously, in the construction of luxurious residences, first in the city itself and then in the middle-class enclaves of Francophone Outremont and Anglophone Westmount.93 The examination of the Churches in Scotland and Quebec is pivotal to an understanding of these civil societies and to the nationalists under study, since religion and civil society are inextricably linked.94 Religion had a diffuse influence on the social and political outlook of the Young Scots and the Nationalistes. Its presence was felt throughout Scottish and Francophone Quebec civil society. Accordingly it is necessary to briefly review its history in these civil societies. The 1840s were a key turning point for both dominant churches, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and Quebec’s Roman Catholic Church. Two events proved decisive: the defeat of the Patriote rebellions of 1837–38 in Quebec (then Lower Canada) and “the Disruption” of 1843 in Scotland. Despite the fact that New France was constituted as a Catholic colony, the ubiquitous position of the Catholic Church in the everyday life of Quebec can be dated only from the 1840s. It was only with the defeat of the Patriote rebellions of 1837 and 1838 that the Church became the dominant influence in Quebec’s civil society: the Patriotes’ commitment to the separation of Church and state had threatened the power of the Church. Therefore, the Church, which gave full support to the British authorities, effectively removed its main rival. The increasing influence of the Church through the 1840s is well illustrated by the experience of French Canada’s first historian, François-Xavier Garneau. In the first volume of his Histoire du Canada, published in 1845, he bemoaned the Church’s historic refusal to allow the Protestant Huguenots to settle in New France, believing that the French colony had been deprived of the entrepreneurial spirit and commercial growth that had characterized Protestant New England. However, following the hostile reception that this view received, his subsequent career appears to demonstrate a greater appreciation of the growing power of the Church.95 This anecdotal evidence is supplemented by figures on the number of Catholics per priest, which demonstrate definitively the Church’s growing influence: from 750 Catholics per priest in 1780, the Church fell to its lowest point in 1830 with 1,834 per priest, improving to 1,080 in 1850, and by 1890 it had reached 510.96 This

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was accomplished in a context in which the Francophone Catholic population had substantially increased in size. There was also a parallel increase in the membership of religious orders. The Church continued to penetrate civil society in the early twentieth century: in 1901 the number of members of religious orders of both sexes was 8,612, by 1931 this had increased to 25,332, with the result that there was 1 member of a religious order for every 166 Catholics in 1901 and 1 for every 97 in 1931.97 This reflected the fact that the Catholic Church was responsible for the provision of a range of services outside its purely religious endeavours, including education, health, and social assistance. In the period under study, the Church sought to maintain its hold on a rapidly changing society through the establishment of groups dedicated to every conceivable aspect of social life in Francophone Quebec: Catholic groups catered to girls and boys, men and women, and to specific social or occupational groups such as students or farmers. Catholic mutual societies were also a feature of this period, as was the rise of Catholic journalism. These developments reflected the Church’s “stratégies d’encadrement,”98 which sought to socially cage its members. Henri Bourassa celebrated the uniqueness of the Catholic Church’s position in Quebec: We have in the Province of Quebec – I might say almost exclusively in the Province of Quebec – peace, good understanding between the civil and religious authorities. From this peace have derived laws which permit us to give the Catholic Church a social and civil organization which she finds in no other province of Canada, and in no other part of the British Empire.99 Yet it is also important to note that, while the Catholic Church was a dominant institution in Quebec’s civil society, it was also a heterogeneous institution. Its dioceses and parishes were found in both urban and rural settings. Increasingly, it sought to accommodate the growing numbers of non-Francophone Catholics, such as those from Ireland, Italy (the second most numerous non-British immigrant group after East European Jews), and Poland.100 The Church also incorporated a diversity of theological opinion, from ultramontanes to the more reform-minded, and it was influenced by events outside Quebec. For example, following the separation of Church and state in France in 1905, members of French religious orders came to

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Quebec and brought with them their suspicions of the state.101 Crucially – and despite its dominance in Quebec – it was not monolithic.102 While the Catholic Church in Quebec was in the ascendancy during much of the nineteenth century, the established Presbyterian Church of Scotland lost its near monopoly position. This was the result of “the Disruption” of 1843. The issue, which divided the Church, was the role of patronage in the appointment of ministers. The Church had abolished patronage in 1690, but the British government had reinstated it in 1712 (as a means of securing the loyalty of Scottish notables against Jacobitism), and from 1730 it became a controversial issue within the Church, with disputes often ending in violent protest. The Church was divided between the Moderates, as the proponents of patronage, and the Evangelical Party who opposed it. Following the failure of the Claim of Right, or an appeal to the British government to recognize the Church’s right to spiritual independence from the state, the Church split in two. Adherents of the Evangelical Party walked out of the annual General Assembly of 1843 to establish the Free Church of Scotland, taking with them 40 percent of the Church’s membership and 38 percent of its ministers. It was this event, above all, that severely reduced the strength of the established Church of Scotland.103 The Free Church immediately set itself the task of duplicating the range of institutions traditionally undertaken by the established Church: from scratch it built churches in over 700 of the approximately 950 parishes, and schools in 500 of them.104 Thus the Disruption unintentionally bequeathed institutional pluralism to Scotland. The Church of Scotland’s near-monopoly status had been eroded. It was now just one denomination among several, including the Free Church, the United Presbyterian Church (which had broken from the Church of Scotland in the 1700s), the Scottish Episcopalian Church (in communion with the Anglican Church of England), and the Roman Catholic Church (substantially enhanced by nineteenth-century Irish migration), together with much smaller Protestant denominations. In Paterson’s words, the Disruption meant “no church could any longer claim to be the state, or even the local state.”105 Therefore it was key political events that shaped the contrasting positions of the Church in Scotland and Quebec. The defeat of the Patriotes ensured that the Catholic Church’s position in Quebec was now largely unchallenged. It was the Disruption, rather than the

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considerable challenges posed by industrialization and urbanization, that severely weakened the established Church of Scotland’s hold over Scottish civil society. While it is true that the Church had already lost a proportion of its congregation before 1843, and that its response to the social ills facing industrializing Scotland had proved inadequate, Paterson is premature in his judgment that the Church’s position was doomed.106 The Catholic Church in Quebec maintained its control over education and social services until the 1960s by ensuring its religious monopoly. Civil society in Scotland and Quebec was the site of considerable political controversy during this period. The role of the Church in Quebec’s civil society was a key issue, as was the role of the state in Scotland’s. Young Scots and Nationalistes were actively engaged in these disputes: their own religious sensibilities were often key to shaping their responses and, in turn, the character of their nationalism.

conclusion This overview has suggested that at the threshold of the twentieth century the institutions that governed – empire, state, and civil society – were in different ways challenged by key pressures: geopolitical competition challenged the British Empire’s military and economic pre-eminence; and the practice of federalism, which characterized the relationship between the unitary British state and Scotland and the Canadian federation and Quebec, was under strain. These concerns were debated within Scotland and Quebec’s civil societies. In addition, the agencies of these civil societies were themselves under scrutiny, and the need for their reform was stressed. Here the appropriate place of organized religion within civil society was key: the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec sought to extend its influence; in Scotland Presbyterianism was dominant, though no longer carried by a single institution. These pressures elicited (nationalist) responses, themselves, mediated by the degree to which liberalism was embedded within civil society.

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3 Liberal Nationalists

The Young Scots’ Society (YSS) and the Ligue nationaliste canadienne emerged within a few years of each other, shaped by their contrasting experiences of empire, state, and civil society. This chapter introduces the groups and their leading members, offering a general overview of the key characteristics of the YSS and the Ligue, before charting the more specific social characteristics of individual Young Scots and Nationalistes. The groups contrasted markedly in their organization: the Young Scots preferred to diffuse their message through the organization of branches of the Society, while the Nationalistes sought the establishment of dedicated newspapers as the best way of influencing public opinion. Despite this, Young Scots and Nationalistes, the product of distinct national societies, shared a similar social profile: they were young, urban, and professional.

yo u n g s c o t s ’ s o c i e t y Four elements characterized the Young Scots’ Society: its foundation as an independent organization, its mission as an educational society, its role as a national society, and its campaigning and electioneering contribution. In the words of its 1901–02 Glasgow Branch Syllabus: the movement was “influenced almost solely by men of progressive sympathies, and it was resolved accordingly to associate it with the progressive party of the State [the Liberal Party].”1 Associate being the operative word, for despite its close connection to the Liberal Party, and the fact that those who formed the YSS were active Liberals, it was constituted as an autonomous organization, quite independent of the Liberal Party: “the Young

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Scots concern themselves with the advancement of the Liberal cause, and not with the party qua party, believing that wherever Liberal principles are promoted, a vigorous party will naturally arise.”2 Therefore, the Society conceived of itself as Liberal in the broadest sense. Yet much to the chagrin of its most active members, it continued to maintain a strong connection to the Liberal Party: even in 1911, when the YSS was most critical of the Liberal Party, twenty-six of its fifty-six branches had elected Liberal MPs to the admittedly ceremonial role of honorary president; two branches (Leven and Newburgh) had voted for the prime minister, Herbert Asquith, in this ceremonial role.3 Crucially, however, the YSS remained financially independent of the Liberal Party, being reliant on the individual subscriptions and donations of its members and supporters. Despite this, considerable sums were raised for its free trade and Home Rule campaigns. It prided itself in being “the only body exercising a national influence that has no paid officials. All its work is entirely voluntary, and represents a splendid sacrifice of time, energy and money on the part of the young men and women who compose it.”4 The YSS viewed its role primarily, though not exclusively, as an educational one. Article II of the Society’s constitution stated its aims and objectives: “To stimulate interest in progressive politics, to encourage the study of History, Social and Industrial Science, and Economics, and generally to promote Liberal principles.” This was to be carried out rather formally through a systematic course of lectures and seminars, which were to provide an opportunity for discussion. Young Scots offered themselves as “speakers,” available to present on a range of subjects, political, historical, and cultural. Yet, in practice, YSS syllabi were often quite a mixed bag: A discussion on “Chinese Labour in the Transvaal” would occupy the members on one evening, but on the following week they would be asked to attend a lecture entitled “The Psychological Study of Hamlet.” On the same syllabus a debate on the respective merits of Radicalism and Socialism would find a place alongside a lecture on “The Auld Scotch Sangs.” The result: a “subtle form of propaganda but in its day extremely effective.”5

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This educational role was carried out with an almost missionarylike zeal, quite in keeping with their desire to revive what they regarded as the moral teachings of Gladstone. Initially, under the banner “Back to Gladstone,” its mission was to return Scotland to Liberalism, to wake Scotland from its flirtation with the “sectional” interests of Unionism. Much of the Society’s program had a rather moral content, such as its emphasis on temperance and anti-gambling legislation. Liberalism itself was promoted in highly moral tones; it was not just another political doctrine but a morally superior set of principles representing higher ideals: “Liberalism which appeals to the loftier qualities of a man’s nature, which dares to put forth principles as reasons for altering the present inequalities and wrongs, requires to be incessantly vigilant in educating public opinion.”6 These views reflected the preoccupations of an important segment of bourgeois Scotland. To this end the YSS sought to publish pamphlets and leaflets for its membership and beyond. In 1903 it had a regular column in the nationalist journal the Scottish Patriot. More ambitiously, it established its own monthly journal, The Young Scot, subtitled A New Liberal Monthly Paper (by the third issue it had become A Journal of National and Political Progress). The Young Scot ran for only two years (1903–05), because it was unable to secure a stable financial footing, despite donations from leading Liberals7 and members, most notably J.M. Hogge, the journal’s editor, who had invested his own money.8 The Young Scot reappeared for a limited period in November 1905, though this time as a Quarterly Review of the Young Scots Society. Later, in 1910–11, the Society secured a regular column in the radical UK-wide Reynold’s Newspaper.9 The Society’s independence and its emphasis on political education were in marked contrast to the Liberal Party’s youth organization in England, the League of Young Liberals. John L. Kinloch, who had experience of both, recalled attributes that gave the YSS a certain leverage, and he testified to the bottom-up influence that the YSS exerted: I began my social and political work as a pro-Boer. At that time the most radical body was the Young Scots. From them I learned an important political lesson. They adopted the left-wing policy of the Liberal Party, clearly enunciated, but they were not members

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of the party. They undertook to work for the Liberals, but only so long as the Liberals put in good work for those ideals. The equivalent body [in England] was the Young Liberals. When I was among them later I found that few knew what the Liberal party stood for … The advantage of the Scottish principle is that rank and file can keep the leaders up to the scratch if their hearts fail in well-doing.10 Moreover, the YSS was also distinguished by being a distinctively Scottish society: “The Young Scots, as the name indicates, is a national society.”11 According to Hogge, the Society’s president (1901–05), The attempt to crush national spirit abroad [reference to the Boer War] has evoked a recrudescence of national spirit at home, and there are many who hope to see the creation of a national Scottish party as one of the immediate results of this [Young Scot] movement – a party which shall bring to its work the same distinctive attitude of mind that is at present brought by the Young Welsh or Irish parties … National spirit was never more alive than it is today in Scotland. And the Young Scots are making it Liberal – Liberal as Mr Gladstone was Liberal.12 This aim to give Liberalism in Scotland a national flavour was also made by the Society’s secretary and treasurer (1903–06), John Gulland: the Society “confidently appeals to all Scotsmen who desire to see their country again take its rightful place – so long and so honourably filled by it in the past – as a leading nation in progressive thought and action to all the world.”13 J.W. Gulland, Edinburgh YSS president (1903–05), wanted the YSS to “infuse a spirit of nationality into our political life”; this did not mean setting up a Scottish national party, which would be “unnecessary and would be unwise. Let us rather make the Scottish Liberal members our Scottish party, impregnate them with Scottish ideas, make them fight at Westminster for Scotland as the Irish members do for Ireland and the Welsh members for Wales.”14 Again, this points to the bottom-up influence that the YSS sought to exert on Liberal MPs. Yet other members did indeed call for the establishment of a Scottish National Party. A. Rutherford Ker, YSS vice-president (1903–04), argued that there would be no better way to give the YSS purpose than to dedicate itself to “the legislative

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independence of Scotland as far as it is consistent with Imperial Unity … This object should stand out clear and pronounced as the important part of the Young Scots’ policy, the realization of which will justify our existence as a national organization.”15 However, this mixture of progressive and national politics was too much for some members. Sterling Craig (YSS secretary, 1901–02) resigned his post, accusing Hogge of running a “party machine,” a “National Progressive Party.”16 The influence of the Irish Parliamentary Party, first under Charles Parnell and then under John Redmond, is obvious. Also influential was Welsh nationalism, identified with the Young Wales movement and their enigmatic leader David Lloyd George; religious nonconformism provided much of the inspiration for the Welsh movement. Both movements sought to fuse radicalism and nationalism. The Welsh movement, in particular, had provided a model for James Steel, president of the Liverpool YSS, who had firsthand experience of it in Liverpool and who explicitly argued for a Scottish version: There is … a national trend and sentiment today in Wales which is almost non-existent in Scotland. This cannot be because our grievances are not as acute and as long lasting as those of Wales. Even here, in this Tory-ridden Liverpool, the Cymru Fidd, or Young Wales Society, have a flourishing branch, and is moreover, the envy of many a Scot in this city, who is interested in politics.17 The YSS played a crucial role in the electoral fortunes of the Liberal Party; it was dubbed “the spearhead of the Liberal attack in Scotland.”18 Besides carrying out its day-to-day branch activity of preparing syllabi of lectures and debates, it provided speakers to address meetings during by-elections and general elections, and volunteers to distribute leaflets. Liberal Party literature was stamped “distributed by the Young Scots Society” to make the point. The YSS also produced its own election and campaign literature. Between elections it carried out its own campaigns. Initially it offered its services to the Scottish Liberal Association (SLA) and participated in the organization of public meetings, which were addressed by such notable radicals as Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. Their electoral contribution proved extremely effective. Henry Campbell Bannerman, the leader of the Liberal Party and prime minister (1905–08), testified to the electoral work done by the

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Society during the 1906 general election: “I enclose with pleasure my subscription to the Young Scots Society, and I do so not only with sympathy and admiration, but with a deep sense of indebtedness for the valuable work they did in the General Election.”19 Following the January 1910 general election, the Liberal Party’s Scottish whip commended the YSS: “As Whip I should like to express on behalf of the Liberal Party our great debt of gratitude to the Young Scots Society for the splendid work they have done during the election. The result has been a notable victory, and your society is entitled to a very considerable share in the credit.”20 Testimony to the effectiveness of the YSS also came from their Unionist opponents. Unionists sought to emulate the Young Scots’ success through the establishment of short-lived branches of the Junior Imperialist Unionist League.21 In May 1914, during the debate on Ian Macpherson’s Scottish Home Rule bill in the House of Commons, the Unionists sought to dismiss support for the measure, claiming that it was only the Young Scots and not the people of Scotland who desired Home Rule.22 Thus, much of the Society’s reputation was based on its formidable campaigning abilities. The YSS grew quickly in size and influence. Their newly acquired influence in Liberal political circles as an active body meant that many leading Liberals and aspiring candidates sought to associate themselves with the YSS. Prominent Scottish Gladstonians, like Thomas Shaw (later Lord Tweedmouth) and A.L. Brown, had a natural empathy with the YSS, not least since it provided a check on the Roseberyite Liberal League. The former was elected as the Society’s first honorary president (1901–05). This ceremonial position fell to other Liberal MPs with a close relationship to the YSS: Arthur Dewar (1906–07), the Young Scot J.W. Gulland (1907–11), and C.E. Price (1911–15). However, others viewed the relationship much more instrumentally. After addressing a YSS meeting in Crossmyloof, in residential south side Glasgow, the Liberal MP Alexander MacCallum Scott wrote disparagingly: “these little Young Scots’ meetings are of little value in themselves at the present. True, but I think nevertheless they will be a good investment. Five or ten years hence Liberalism will be in the hands of these young people. It will be useful to have established friendly relations with them and to be well known by them.”23 The YSS, therefore, offered an active association of young men and women with which ambitious Liberal politicians had to engage.

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The YSS actively sought to advance their brand of Liberalism by wining the confidence of Liberal candidates and MPs: “Let us stiffen the backs of the wobblers, not by threats but by help. After all, the weakest candidate is a human being, and he is much more likely to be won over by kindness than by boycotting. He will come to see that the Young Scot support is worth having, and he will try to understand the point of view which prompts such earnestness.”24 However, an alternate view was also in evidence in which the YSS sought to “influence the selection of candidates and get rid of the present haphazard and helpless political nonentities who pose as Scottish candidates.”25 The success of this strategy is shown by The Young Scot series “Candidates Worth Voting For,” which depicted ten YSS-endorsed prospective Liberal candidates who were proclaimed as “Young Scots” and which was supplemented with an additional series “Members Worth Retaining,” profiling another three.26 But Hanham’s statement that “the leading Young Scots nearly all found seats in Parliament after 1906” is quite erroneous,27 while Finlay’s statement that “[B]y 1905, fifteen Young Scots had been placed as parliamentary candidates and the Society had the support of sixteen MPs” is too sweeping.28 The reality was that many of the candidates and MPs that Hanham and Finlay refer to as Young Scots had a rather tenuous connection to the YSS. This should not diminish the more general point, however, that the association of these Liberals with the YSS was itself an indication of the Society’s growing influence. Indeed, a survey of the guest speakers at YSS Conferences confirms the ability of the YSS to attract “the great and the good”: David Lloyd George, MP (1903); The Master of Elibank, MP, the Scottish whip (1909); the Lord Advocate Alexander Ure, MP (1910); Secretary for Scotland Thomas MacKinnon Wood, MP (1913); and the Lord Advocate Robert Munro, MP (1914).29

ligue nationaliste canadienne A similar set of elements characterizes the Ligue nationaliste canadienne and the activities of its leading members during this period. Like its counterpart in Scotland, but with important differences: it was independent of existing political parties; it viewed its primary mission as being an educational one; and its constituency was delimited to French Canadians within the Province of Quebec. In contrast to the Young Scots, and as noted above, the Ligue and the Nationaliste

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movement was largely a top-down affair. It failed to establish a grassroots organization that could support the Nationaliste leaders’ forays into electoral politics. It was also a fairly heterodox movement united only by a commitment to its three-point program, which sought to appeal to both of Canada’s (European) founding peoples: 1 For Canada, in its relations with Great Britain the fullest measure of autonomy compatible with the maintenance of colonial link; 2 For the Canadian provinces, in their relations with federal power, the largest measure of autonomy compatible with the federal link; 3 Adoption by the federal and provincial governments of an essentially Canadian policy of economic and intellectual development.30 The Ligue and the Nationaliste movement sought to be independent of both the established Liberal and Conservative parties. Unlike the Young Scots, which had a close relationship to the Liberal Party, the Ligue and the Nationaliste movement were determined that their appeal should cross political boundaries, that Nationalism should stand above party Liberalism and Conservatism and be channelled by neither. This was despite the fact that its leading members hailed from Liberal Party backgrounds. Henri Bourassa served as a Liberal  MP (1896–1907) in Ottawa and had famously declared: “A Liberal I was born and a Liberal I will die.”31 Even when he stood against the provincial Liberals in 1907 he insisted that he had not forsaken Liberalism: “If I make war, it is because I am liberal.”32 Armand Lavergne’s background was also Liberal; his uncle had secured the riding of Drummond-Arthabaska for the Liberals in 1887,33 and he, too, initially served as a Liberal MP (1904–08). Moreover, Lavergne’s parents were close friends of Liberal Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier.34 Olivar Asselin’s family was staunchly Liberal: “I am liberal; all my family is liberal; my grandfather and my father were devoted friends of Pierre[-Alexis] Tremblay in the struggles that he fought against Sir Hector[-Louis] Langevin for the freedom of suffrage, the education of the people, and other causes dear to true liberal hearts.”35 Asselin’s family had faced considerable harassment as a result of its stand against clerical influence in this struggle.36 Furthermore, Asselin served as the personal secretary (1901–03) to Lomer Gouin, Quebec’s

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minister of Public Works and future Liberal premier (1905–20). Jules Fournier’s father was also of strong Liberal convictions.37 There is no indication that Omer Héroux shared a Liberal Party background, and it is doubtful given his ultramontane leanings. Nevertheless, despite their shared Liberal heritage, they were willing to turn their back on the Liberal Party. Despite key conflicts, in the early part of the period, they remained close to Laurier’s Liberals; however, by the provincial election of 1908 and the federal election of 1911 they found a greater coincidence of interests with Quebec’s Conservatives and therefore formed a tacit electoral alliance to that effect. The Ligue’s circle of sympathisers was wide, incorporating Liberals and Conservatives, free thinkers and ultramontanes. PelletierBaillargeon reports that Bourassa would raise his eyebrows at the sight of the “supporters” that Asselin and the Ligue had invited to the public meetings which he addressed.38 They could include the conservative ultramontane Jules-Paul Tardivel together with the radical Liberal Godfroy Langlois, whose freemasonry was an open secret. Indeed, by inviting Rodolphe Lemieux, Liberal deputy for the Gaspé, and Léon Adolphe Chauvin, Conservative deputy for Terrebonne, to the Ligue’s inaugural public meeting Asselin immediately established that the Ligue’s appeal would be cross-party.39 The Nationalistes themselves had a rather fuzzy sense of just what constituted the Nationaliste movement. Initially, the Ligue’s newspaper Le Nationaliste carried a regular column entitled “Le Mouvement nationaliste,” which reproduced any declaration of nationalism found in the Canadian press. Needless to say, the column brought together a rather disparate set of individuals and groups. For example, one column included Goldwin Smith writing in the (Toronto) Weekly Sun, excerpts from newspaper articles found in Le Bulletin du parler français (a newspaper dedicated to the study of the French language), the ultramontane nationalist La Verité, and the regional newspaper L’Avenir du Nord, together with a report of government Ministers Sifton and Lemieux addressing a meeting of young Liberals in Hamilton, Ontario.40 The Ligue nationaliste was, above all, conceived as an educational association with the function of educating public opinion in Quebec. It was the Nationalistes’ shared belief that an attempt had to be made to reach the people over the heads of politicians and their supporters in the press. Given this rather narrow objective, Olivar Asselin made it quite clear that the organization would not be

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mass-based: “Its promoters, realizing, that the enrollment of the masses into such bodies to be impracticable save in time of strife, have only had in view the forming of an educative association, not unlike the English Cobden Club and the New England Tariff Club.”41 While the YSS sought the formation of local branches across Scotland, the Ligue largely diffused the views of its leaders in a rather top-down manner, this, despite partial evidence that Asselin had taken it upon himself to begin “the organization of several circles of the Ligue.”42 The Ligue set itself the task of educating public opinion on its three-point program. Initially the Théâtre National acted as the Ligue’s public meeting place, and Les Débats as their weekly newsletter.43 However, the Ligue was soon instrumental in organizing a series of rallies and meetings throughout Quebec to attract attention to the anti-imperialist cause. Henri Bourassa was frequently the key attraction. The rally held at the Manège Militaire in Quebec City on 8 December 1903 was particularly successful, attracting some six thousand attendees.44 In the long term the Ligue sought the establishment of its own newspaper. It also sought the election of politicians who shared their ideas in both the federal and provincial arenas. Following a successful by-election campaign in 1904, the Ligue was actively involved in the election of one of their own, Armand Lavergne, as federal Liberal-Nationalist deputy for Montmagny. This educational campaign was waged, above all, through the foundation of dedicated newspapers, which sought to stimulate debate on topics of concern. Indeed, given the profile of the Ligue’s leading members, it is hardly surprising that journalism became the Nationalistes’ major weapon. The three newspapers – key to promoting the nationalist cause in Quebec – each had a distinctive stance, reflecting the politics of its founder: Le Nationaliste, founded in 1904 by Olivar Asselin; Le Devoir, founded in 1910 by Henri Bourassa; and L’Action, founded in 1911 by Jules Fournier. Given their importance, it is worth spending some time on this aspect of their educational campaign. Asselin was the first to found a newspaper. The choice of title is as revealing as were the alternative rejected titles. Asselin wanted “a name that indicates the style of the newspaper and its political colour, and that is new to Canada.” Héroux had suggested La lutte pour la vie, and the ultramontane nationalist Jules-Paul Tardivel proposed La lutte nationale; other suggestions included: Le Tiers-Parti, La

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défense du sol, L’idée nationale, and L’esprit national.45 However, it was Le Nationaliste that was finally decided on. Asselin heralded its appearance at a Ligue nationaliste meeting at the Théâtre National on 21 February 1903, though it was not until 6 March 1904 that it was finally launched as the weekly organ of the Ligue. The opportunity to launch an independent Montreal-based newspaper had presented itself with the passing of Les Débats and its successor Le Combat: “the successive disappearance of Les Débats and Le Combat leaves us free rein”46 Asselin took the reins as the newspaper’s editor, a post he held during its first four years of existence. From 1906 Jules Fournier, a young journalist who wrote under the pseudonym “Pierre Beaudry,” assisted Asselin; Fournier later succeeded him as editor (1908–10). The result: “if Henri Bourassa was the voice of anti-imperialism, Asselin wielded its leading pen.”47 Le Nationaliste sought to provide both the movement and the wider Francophone Quebec public with an independent voice, free from party considerations, and it emulated Les Débats with its mix of political and literary coverage. Its independence contrasted with much of the established press in Quebec, which was closely affiliated to political parties. Montreal’s Le Canada and Quebec City’s Le Soleil were not only supportive of the Liberal Party but were effectively also its voice.48 The latter openly proclaimed its role as the “Organe du Parti Libéral.” Financial support for the newspaper was crucial, and it came from G.N. Ducharme and Edmond Lepage, both enlisted with Bourassa’s help.49 Nevertheless, Le Nationaliste operated, at least initially, on something of a shoestring budget. Its premises were to be found “in an old store on rue Notre-Dame, glacially cold, above a cellar which was open at the back, where snow entered by the heap.”50 Its financial woes were exacerbated by the controversial reputation it had acquired during its formative years, this, despite its relatively moderate political stance.51 Omer Héroux raised concern that the absence of religious coverage would hamper its distribution: “In the region of Trois-Rivières … the lack of reference to the religious question in the newspaper’s propaganda will hold back its propaganda.”52 Moreover, several libel writs were issued against the newspaper and its editor. These were in response to Asselin’s polemics against leading politicians and journalists whom he accused of duplicity. So passionate was their engagement that both Asselin and Fournier each spent a spell in prison. These court cases took a financial toll on

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the newspaper.53 This propensity to attract controversy prompted Bourassa to distance himself from Le Nationaliste: “I stopped working at Le Nationaliste because I found it impossible for a public man to write articles in a newspaper and at the same time take responsibility for everything that the newspaper published.”54 Le Nationaliste had proved to be “a little reckless” for Bourassa.55 Henri Bourassa sought a more cautious approach as he widened the appeal of the Nationalistes’ ideas through the creation of a daily independent newspaper. Le Devoir (the only one of the newspapers reviewed to survive until the present) first appeared on 10 January 1910. The aim of the new paper was made quite clear in its first issue: “To ensure the triumph of ideas over wants, of the public good over party spirit, there is only one way: to awake in the people, and especially in the ruling classes, a sense of public duty in all its forms: religious duty, national duty, civic duty.”56 These were familiar themes: an appeal to French Canadian elites in Quebec to stand above the party fray and pursue policies for the “public good.” Bourassa was both its founder (retaining a 51 percent stake in Le Devoir’s publishing company) and its editor for its first thirty-two years. Bourassa brought together both the ultramontane and liberal sides of the Nationaliste movement at Le Devoir, by inviting Omer Héroux and Georges Pelletier from L’Action Sociale and Olivar Asselin and Jules Fournier from Le Nationaliste to join his staff.57 Yet disagreement with Bourassa meant that the tenure of the latter two lasted only a few months. Their disagreements appear to have been both personal and political. There was frustration with Bourrassa’s temperament: “Gradually, like many others besides, he [Fournier] finally understood that the great qualities of Mr Bourassa led themselves to his ruin.”58 Moreover, the assignments that Bourassa gave them restricted their combative journalism.59 Yet, despite its Nationaliste stance, Le Devoir proceeded cautiously, careful to court the approval of the Church. Increasingly its battles coincided with those of the Catholic Church.60 Indeed the readership of Le Devoir reflected this predilection: according to Mason Wade, Le Devoir was one of only two newspapers permitted in the Churchrun classical colleges (the other being L’Action Sociale).61 Therefore, Le Devoir was as much a reflection of Nationalist thought as Catholic thought. Unlike its predecessors it adopted a high moral tone in line with the Church’s social and moral teachings, even being quite particular about which products could be advertised:

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WE REFUSE TO REPORT in the “DEVOIR,” bad books, immoral theatre, strong drink (other than wine and beer), patented medicines based on opium, morphine, cocaine or alcohol … We want to protect the public, and especially the worker against exploitation of which he is a victim.62 Moreover, it was telling that it was Omer Héroux who was to take Bourassa’s place in his absence: “He felt complete confidence in Tardivel’s son in law [Héroux] whose religious beliefs coincided perfectly with his own.”63 With the launch of Le Devoir, Le Nationaliste was effectively overshadowed. It had lost its campaigning editor, Fournier, and its role as a journal de combat. Sharing the same financial backers as Le Devoir, it effectively became Le Devoir’s weekend edition. Following his departure from Le Devoir, Jules Fournier founded his own newspaper, L’Action. Its title can be seen as a riposte to Bourassa, and the fact that “Bourassa preached wonderful theories, but he was never acted on them.”64 The newspaper lasted five years, from 15 April 1911 to 29 April 1916. It proved very successful at attracting distinguished contributors. Asselin was a regular contributor (although he had forsaken full-time journalism for the more lucrative world of real estate), along with leading French Canadian social scientists such as Édouard Montpetit and Edmond de Nevers and poets such as Albert Lozeau. In contrast to Le Devoir, L’Action sought to recapture the fighting spirit that Les Débats and Le Nationaliste had displayed in their formative years: it favoured biting polemics against Quebec’s established elite, and it adopted a more radical and liberal stance. However, it is worth noting that the influence of these newspapers was limited. These were not mass-circulation newspapers, and nor were they intended to be: these were journals of opinion aimed at “men of influence.” The circulation of Le Nationaliste was 8,200 in 1904 growing to 14,000 in 1913 (then under the wing of Le Devoir), while Le Devoir’s circulation was 12,529 in 1910. These figures should, however, be set alongside those of the mass circulation La Presse, which in 1913 had a readership of 121,085.65 Nevertheless, they did reach an influential readership, and Wade goes further, arguing that Le Devoir’s influence in 1911 was greater than that of its mass circulation competition given the composition of its readership, and given the fact that it attracted financial support from

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Conservative-supporting Saint James Street businessmen who found in Bourassa a means of defeating Laurier.66 The third feature of the Nationaliste movement was that it was largely confined to French Canadians, and principally those within the Province of Quebec. The formation of Francophone Quebecbased newspapers attests to this. This was despite the fact that the Nationalistes continued to seek and to receive (albeit limited) support among English-speaking Canadians. Henri Bourassa carried the Nationaliste message to English-speaking Canada, frequently addressing clubs of various complexions in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces, and later in Western Canada. Armand Lavergne followed in Bourassa’s footsteps. For example, he accepted an invitation to address the University of Toronto’s Literary Society, from an Anglophone member of the Society and subscriber to Le Devoir, who declared: “I believe that nationalism is safe in your hands, and that, if you will only spread throughout the country, it will progress rapidly.”67 Olivar Asselin frequently contributed articles to the English-language press both in Canada and the United States. Moreover, Jules Fournier defended English Canadian journalists who were unfairly accused of being anti-French Canadian, and he pointed out that there were a number of English-language journals sympathetic to French Canadians.68 Yet the energies of the Ligue and the Nationalistes were overwhelmingly directed toward Francophone Quebecers, whether through the organization of public meetings, newspaper publishing, or electoral involvement. This inconsistency in claiming to be Canadian nationalists yet only targeting the Francophone Quebec part of the Canadian population was found in the very title of the Ligue: the Ligue nationaliste canadienne. But Asselin nevertheless defended the proposition that “a league may be nationalist in its purpose without claiming a national scope, and even aim at national import without burdening itself with so heavy a name as ‘national.’”69 He elaborated, invoking the Ligue’s three-point program: That the League’s programme saw the light in Quebec is much to the credit of this Province. That a group of young FrenchCanadians should have first seen the tremendous possibilities for Canada’s growth that lay in her right to make her own commercial treaties and her keeping out of the Empire’s foreign wars, in the removing from the Federal field all of those matters in which

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the various Provinces have distinct interests, and in saving for the Canadian people the natural riches of their native land, is nothing for French Canada to be ashamed of.70 The truth was that they were binationalists, both Canadian and French Canadian nationalists. The final characteristic of the Nationaliste movement was its involvement in electoral politics, in part, an extension of the Nationalistes’ wider educational campaign. The Nationalistes contested elections at all levels of government in Quebec: municipal, provincial, and federal. This contrasts with the Young Scots, who despite threats, stood back from contesting elections under an independent banner. Yet the Nationalistes’ involvement was often carried out in a fairly ad hoc fashion. They came closest to constituting themselves as a political party in the federal election of 1911. However, writing in Le Devoir in 1917, Henri Bourassa refuted the claim that the Nationalistes had ever constituted a political party: the Nationalists are not a party nor have they ever been. For a party we have neither the staff, nor the organization, nor even the spirit. In 1911 we did not present candidates: we simply supported the candidates accepted by Mr Monk [the Quebec Conservative leader] who undertook to combat the imperialist policy of the two parties. The experiment did not succeed and no one among us is tempted to try it again.71 This very lack of a political organization meant that these forays met with only limited success. In this respect, Bourassa’s disdain for political parties in a system of government based on political parties and the associated notions of compromise and pragmatism severely weakened the Nationaliste cause. Indeed, throughout this period Bourassa’s impetuousness and his romantic idealism were both the Nationaliste movement’s greatest asset and its greatest weakness.

yo u n g s c o t s Two distinct periods in the history of the YSS are discernable. In its formative years the YSS reflected its Edinburgh origins. Most of its branches were to be found in the east and Borders of Scotland. Its policy concerns were traditional Liberal concerns: temperance, land

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reform, and free trade. But following the 1906 general election, and particularly after the general elections of 1910, the Society found success in the west of Scotland; a Western Council was formed to coordinate the activities of branches in the West, which in turn sought greater autonomy within the YSS and initiated a restructuring of the Society’s constitution in the process. Prudhomme reports that in 1903 Edinburgh had approximately four hundred members compared to only around one hundred in Glasgow, and four branches (Centre, Stockbridge, West End, and a Women’s branch) compared to Glasgow’s single branch.72 By November 1911 Edinburgh had been reduced to a single branch, while Glasgow branches flourished; seven branches were in operation (Central, Eastern, Northern, South Suburban, Partick, Maryhill, and Kinning Park and Plantation).73 So something of a reversal in the Society’s political centre of gravity had taken place. Policy concerns were now concentrated on the achievement of Scottish Home Rule and a radical social agenda. The YSS had grown from its modest beginnings in Edinburgh to become a truly national organization. However growth was not linear, and fluctuation is discernable in its national membership: 1,620 in 1903, 2,348 in 1904, c.1,000 in 1907 and 1908, c.1,200 in 1909, 2,500 in 1910, and 3,500 in 1911.74 The absence of records makes individual branch membership harder to ascertain. The Glasgow Partick Branch was reportedly the “second largest branch in the movement.”75 At its AGM in 1912 it had 216 members (it had gained 45 new members from the previous year, but had lost 56 members).76 There was also fluctuation in the number of branches in existence: there were eighteen in 1901, twenty-eight in 1903, thirty-one in 1904, nineteen in 1906, twenty-six in 1907, thirty-one in 1908, forty-eight in 1910, fifty-six in 1911, and forty-five in 1914.77 Latterly, the YSS established a Young Scots Club in Edinburgh (1910) and a Young Scot Institute in Glasgow (1913). Yet it is clear that the YSS’s influence reached far beyond its immediate membership. The YSS published ten thousand copies of its Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12 and fifty thousand copies of its campaigning booklet Sixty Points for Scottish Home Rule.78 The nature of particular branches also gives a sense of the reach of the YSS’s appeal. Although the YSS was a predominantly male organization, one of its first branches was the Edinburgh Women’s Branch, a reflection of the growing political activism of middle-class women during this period. Despite this, women did not hold any of

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the Society’s national offices, and by 1904 the Edinburgh Women’s Branch ceased to exist. Moreover, only two of the eighty-two available Young Scot speakers, listed in 1911, were women: Mrs J.M. Crosthwaite and Mrs Napier. As chapter 7 suggests, it is likely that other organizations provided a political home for women during this period. Long-standing branches in Liverpool and London demonstrate its attraction to expatriates. James Steel, the founder of the Liverpool YSS, was an early member, and on the nationalist wing of the YSS. He was a Scottish businessman, long resident in Liverpool. The Young Scot suggested that the maintenance of the branch was no small achievement given that “[T]he majority of Scotsmen in Liverpool are more English than the English themselves.”79 In Scotland itself, branches were formed in the urban centres of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dundee, the industrial towns of west central Scotland, and a patchwork of branches were formed in small towns throughout rural Scotland. The YSS also sought to cater to growing numbers of suburbanites (suburbanization was a key feature of the period). The Glasgow South Suburban Branch, for instance, sought to do just that: “Mr Peacock [branch president], living a considerable distance from the meeting place [of the Glasgow Central Branch], saw that a place such as Langside and neighbourhood, with ever increasing population, had an identity of its own, and was capable of forming an organization of its own.”80 This pattern was reflected in the formation of other suburban branches in Glasgow. YSS branches, therefore, reflected a variety of constituencies. The social profile of individual Young Scots is of particular interest in locating them within Scottish society. Yet an immediate problem presents itself: who is a Young Scot? The accolade “Young Scot” was bandied about quite a bit in the early years of the Society’s existence. The focus here is on active members of the YSS who held office, attended meetings and conferences, and participated in campaigns, rather than those for whom it was simply an expedient title. Although no comprehensive record of the Society’s social composition has survived, something of its character can be compiled from surviving documents. This section considers the age composition of YSS members, their educational, occupational, religious, and geographical backgrounds, while greater contextualization of their backgrounds is presented in chapter 7.

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How young were the Young Scots? A limited amount of information survives on the age composition of Young Scots. Certainly in the early years of its formation, and from available information, most members were aged in their twenties and thirties. When the Society was formed in 1900, J.M. Hogge (1873–1928), one its founders, was twenty-seven. Hogge and other founder members, such as James Matson, found support from an older generation of men who had already established themselves in Edinburgh Liberal circles, such as J.W. Gulland (1864–1920) and James Leishman (1864-n.d.), who were thirty-six in 1900, and Edward Parrott (1863–1921), chairman of the Edinburgh South Liberal Association, who was thirty-seven. Prominent members in the west of Scotland, such as the Rev. James Barr (1862–1949) and Roland Muirhead (1868–1964) were thirtyeight and thirty-two respectively in 1900 (Muirhead joined a year later in 1901). It is reasonable to assume that the YSS’s age composition spanned members in their twenties, thirties, and forties, given that many of these Young Scots continued to be active throughout this period. It is worth bearing in mind that when Roland Muirhead parted company with the YSS in 1918 he was fifty! This attests to the fact that while the Society sought to appeal to young men and women, its membership was not exclusively drawn from the young. Indeed it underscores that the YSS was not simply a youth organization; it was the most important Home Rule organization of this era, maintaining the support and participation of older members. Many of the Society’s leading members had obtained some further education. For example, Hogge (YSS president, 1901–05), J.W. Gulland (YSS president, 1905–07), and John Gulland (YSS secretary and treasurer, 1903–06) attended Edinburgh University; Barr (executive member, Glasgow YSS, 1901–02) attended Glasgow University; D. MacGregor Mitchell (YSS vice-resident, 1904–05) attended both Edinburgh and St Andrew’s Universities; and James Leishman (convenor of YSS Free Trade Committee, 1903–09) attended Heriot Watt College.81 Notably, they were educated exclusively in Scotland. This is important. Yet only fourteen of the eighty-two Young Scots on the 1911 list of speakers were identified as possessing a university degree (eleven MAs, one LL.B., one BD, one B.Sc.),82 suggesting that Young Scots were not drawn exclusively from the university educated. Roland Muirhead (YSS vice-president, 1911–15) enjoyed a rather unique educational career. He had left high school at fifteen to learn the family’s tannery business. However, at the age of nineteen he left

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Scotland for several years of travel, during which time he worked on a cattle ranch in Argentina and lived in an Owenite colony in Washington State, USA.83 For those for whose records exist, occupationally YSS members were middle class, with both professionals and small businessmen featuring prominently. Several Young Scots were members of the legal profession whether as lawyers, solicitors, or writers: John Gulland, MacGregor Mitchell, Sterling Craig (YSS secretary, 1901– 02), Archibald Hamilton (secretary and treasurer, Glasgow YSS, 1901–02), F.J. Robertson (convener, YSS Parliamentary Committee, 1907–10), John M. Crosthwaite (YSS secretary, 1907–12), J.S. Saunders (YSS treasurer, 1909–12), and A.C. Campbell (secretary, Perth YSS, 1913–14). David Paton (secretary, Glasgow South Suburban, 1911–12) was an architect.84 Newer professions were also represented: Hogge and John Peacock (president, Glasgow South Suburban YSS, 1904) had been employed as social investigators, the former by Joseph and Seebohm Rowantree and by Arthur Sherwell. Hogge also combined social investigation with journalism, writing articles on various aspects of social policy.85 Young Scots were also involved in various forms of business. J.W. Gulland inherited his father’s Edinburgh-based corn merchant business.86 Small businessmen were similarly in evidence, most notably Muirhead and Alexander MacLaren (president, YSS Western Council, 1913–15). Muirhead owned his family’s tannery business, the Gryffe Tannery Company of Bridge of Weir, while MacLaren ran the family printing and publishing business, which specialized in “all things Gaelic.” MacLaren’s business published much of the YSS material in the immediate prewar period. Claude Wilson (secretary, Edinburgh West End YSS, 1904) was a wholesale bookseller. James Matson (YSS secretary, 1902–03, 1905–07) and James Steel (president Liverpool YSS) had unspecified business interests.87 The common trait among these various occupations is that, with the exceptions of Hogge’s work for the Rowantrees and the James Steel’s Liverpool business interests, they were Scottish-based. Religion, in the form of affiliation to the United Free Church (UFC), played an important role in many of the biographies of Young Scots, and it reflected the closeness between the UFC and the Liberal Party. A preponderance of those for whom records exist were connected to the UFC: Barr was a minister, Hogge an assistant minister, J.W. Gulland was elected to the Edinburgh School Board as a UFC

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candidate, MacGregor Mitchell was an elder, and George MacPherson (president, Glasgow YSS, 1904) was a UFC educator. Hogge, John Gulland, and John Peacock were also involved in church-related social work.88 In contrast, Roland Muirhead was something of an oddity, as an agnostic and a member of the Rationalist Association, amid the religiosity of other Young Scots. Yet he shared many of their moral convictions – he was a proponent of temperance, something he also held in common with many in the emerging labour movement. YSS National Office bearers between 1901 and 1915 were drawn from across Scotland. Members from Edinburgh (Hogge, 1901– 05, and J.W. Gulland, 1905–07), Dunfermline (Robert Hay, 1907– 11, and Kenneth MacIver, 1913–15), and Kilmarnock (William Laughland, 1911–13) held the presidency of the Society. Members from Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Perth filled the positions of secretary and treasurer. A greater geographical diversity was found among holders of the vice-presidency (three were elected every year); members from Aberdeen in the northeast, Dunfermline in Fife, Falkirk in central Scotland, Selkirk in the Scottish Borders, Ayr in the southwest, and Bridge of Weir to the southwest of Glasgow joined members from Edinburgh and Glasgow in holding the office of vice-president. Hogge also held this position while he was resident in York, England. Although records are limited and the picture is sketchy, something of a general picture does emerge. Young Scots were young, although perhaps not as young as their name would suggest, but more importantly they were educated in Scotland, their occupations were Scottish-based and their religion was organized in Scotland. In addition, its leading members came from cities and towns across Scotland. A final point: despite its fluctuating membership and its shift from classical Liberal themes to the espousal of both social Liberalism and a more forceful home-rule position, its national office bearers were often long standing members, suggesting that the seeds of this later direction had been sown early on. Roland Muirhead illustrates the point; a staunch Home Ruler, Muirhead joined the YSS in 1901 yet it was not until 1911 that he was elected as a vice-president of the Society, a position he maintained until 1915.

nationalistes The Ligue nationaliste was a very different organization from the Young Scots’ Society. It was largely a “paper organization,” a means

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of disseminating the ideas of its leading members, rather than seeking a formal existence through the creation of a constitution and the formation of branches. Two possible explanations for this are worth noting here, though they are developed later in the book. First, the Nationalistes had an elite-driven conception of society; their focus was primarily on persuading men of influence of the justice of their cause, and not necessarily wider society (see chapter 5). It is perhaps unsurprising, given their journalistic backgrounds, that the establishment of newspapers should be preferred to development of a more formal organization (see chapter 7). Given this, the span of the Ligue’s existence is unclear. Increasingly, journalism took the place of Ligue activities. The very nature of the organization explains why its less illustrious members are poorly documented – in contrast to the biographies of the Ligue’s leading members. The focus here is on the three founding members of the Ligue – its president, Olivar Asselin (1874–1937); its secretary, Omer Héroux (1876–1963); and its Quebec City organizer, Armand Lavergne (1880–1935) – but also on their mentor Henri Bourassa (1868–1952) and Jules Fournier (1884–1918), a close friend and colleague of Asselin’s, who played a key role in the development of the Nationaliste movement. The term Nationaliste is used throughout to refer to these individuals and their supporters. In 1903, the year of the Ligue’s foundation, its leading members were relatively young: its mentor Bourassa was the eldest at thirtyfive, Fournier the youngest at nineteen, Asselin was twenty-nine, Héroux twenty-seven, and Lavergne twenty-three. Their supporters were also in their twenties and thirties: Napoléon Garceau (1868– 1945), the Ligue’s Drummondville-based founder, was thirty-five. Each of the Nationalistes had received a Catholic education of varying quality.89 Bourassa’s education was the most diverse: he briefly attended the École du Plateau in Montreal (1881) before his family secured private tutors; he then attended the École polytechnique (1885) and Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts (1886).90 In contrast, both Asselin and Fournier had attended rural parish schools before enrollment in collèges classiques, at the Séminaire de Rimouski (1888–92) and the Séminaire de Valleyfield (1897–1902), respectively.91 Omer Héroux was also the product of a collège classique, attending the Séminaire de Trois-Rivières. Armand Lavergne began at the local school before progressing to the Séminaire de Québec.92 However, of the five, he was the only one to attend university, studying law at Quebec City’s Laval University.93

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Their occupations attest to the prominence of the liberal professions in Francophone Quebec society: Lavergne was a lawyer and politician; Asselin, Fournier, and Héroux were journalists; and their mentor Henri Bourassa combined journalism with politics. It is instructive to review the newspapers on which the journalists had worked. Bourassa had briefly been editor of La Patrie. Asselin came to journalism first in New England working first for French- then English-language newspapers such as Le Protecteur of Fall River, Massachusetts, La Tribune, and the Evening Star of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He relocated to Montreal in 1900 and contributed to a number of newspapers, including Les Débats, Le Journal, La Patrie, and La Presse. Fournier began his career working at La Presse (1903) before moving to Le Canada (1904–06) and La Patrie (1909–11). In contrast, and with the exception of La Patrie and Le Journal, Héroux’s career was largely oriented to Catholic newspapers: Le Trifluvien, Le Monde catholique, Le Pionnier, and later La Verité and L’Action sociale. He became son-in-law to Jules-Paul Tardivel, editor of the ultramontane La Verité.94 These contrasting journalistic career paths point to the differing political and social orientations that Bourassa, Asselin, Fournier, and Héroux brought to the Nationaliste cause. Many of the others who were involved in the initial formation of the Ligue, including Louvigny de Montigny (1876–1955), Omer Chaput, Albert Pelland, Émile Bélanger, and Napoléon Garceau were themselves journalists. Alfred Larocque, a confidant of Asselin’s, and a fundraiser for the Ligue, was something of an exception, as a mining engineer and captain in the Canadian militia.95 Elected politics attracted both Bourassa and Lavergne. Bourassa had entered politics early. At the age of twenty-one he was elected mayor of Montebello (1890–94), the seigneury of Petite-Nation previously owned by his grandfather. He then became mayor of Papineauville (1896–98).96 In 1896 he was elected to the federal parliament for the riding of Labelle at the urging of the Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier. He represented this seat until 1907, and again from 1925 to 1935. In 1908–12 he served in Quebec’s Legislative Assembly. Armand Lavergne also enjoyed a sporadic career in politics. He served in the federal House of Commons from 1904 to 1908, and again in the 1920s and 1930s. He, too, was elected to the Quebec’s Legislative Assembly, and he served from 1908 to 1916. Lavergne also had his own Quebec City legal practice, Taschereau and Lavergne. Business interests came later, and they were associated

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with the foundation of newspapers, however from 1910 Asselin successfully established himself in real estate and as a publicist for the investment house Crédit Métropolitain.97 While all five Nationalistes were practicing Catholics, the forms that their devotion to the Church took had a bearing on their politics. Bourassa, Héroux, and Lavergne were keen to stress the tie between Catholicism and language, believing that they were mutually reinforcing. In contrast, Asselin and Fournier distinguished between the two, and allowed for a more inclusive French Canadian nationality, not bound by religion. Yet Asselin’s personal faith was never in question, and he had seriously considered entering the priesthood, following his brother, Raoul.98 The Nationalistes also diverged in their social backgrounds. Bourassa and Lavergne came from privileged backgrounds. Bourassa’s was almost aristocratic. He came from a rather illustrious family: his grandfather was Louis-Joseph Papineau, a prominent seigneur and the leader of the 1837 Patriote rebellion, while his father, Napoléon Bourassa, was a renowned artist. Armand Lavergne also hailed from an established Quebec political family. He was born in Arthabaskaville (which became Arthabaska in 1903) in central Quebec, where his father was a lawyer, briefly in practice with the future Canadian prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier, and later became a judge at the Quebec Court of Appeal. Lavergne’s uncle was the Liberal MP for Drummond–Arthabaska.99 And there were persistent rumours that Lavergne was Laurier’s illegitimate son.100 In contrast, both Asselin and Fournier hailed from relatively humble rural origins. Asselin was born in Saint-Hilarion in Charlevoix County in northeastern Quebec to a farming family. When he was eighteen financial misfortune forced his family to seek work in New England. This was a well-trodden route taken by many French Canadians from the 1870s, who left the rural and overpopulated Saint Lawrence valley for work in the industrial mill towns of New England. Asselin initially found work as a mill hand, but in his spare time he taught himself to write good French and set out on a career in journalism, initially in the New England Franco-American press but later in the English-language press. He also briefly served in the US Army during the Spanish-American War, although he did not see action. He returned to Quebec in 1900 to pursue a career in journalism.101 Jules Fournier’s background was also rural. He was born in a small agricultural parish of Coteau-du-Lac in the Soulanges region

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to the west of Montreal, lodged between the Saint Lawrence River to the south and the Ottawa River to the north, where his father was a farmer of modest means. It was the parish priest who organized a fund to send the gifted young Jules to the Séminaire de Valleyfield.102 Omer Héroux’s background was less rural; he hailed from SaintMaurice-de-Champlain, close to Quebec’s then third-largest city, Trois-Rivières, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, between Montreal and Quebec City.

conclusion Clearly, the Young Scots’ Society and the Ligue nationaliste canadienne share both similarities and contrasts. These organizations sought to maintain their independence. Yet in the case of the Young Scots, there was a very clear bond with the Liberal Party. Both groups were clearly national in outlook: the Young Scots’ campaigning was confined to Scotland; while the Ligue’s campaigning was delimited to Quebec it nevertheless promoted a pan-Canadian nationalism. There were clear contrasts in the ways in which they sought to disseminate their political message. While both emphasized the need to educate voters, their strategies diverged. Journalism was key among the Nationalistes, with the establishment of three newspapers, one of which exists to this day (Le Devoir). Young Scots were less successful at establishing a dedicated newspaper; rather their extensive network of branches was the focus for their educational work. Moreover, their electoral engagement differed markedly. Nationalistes contested elections under their own banner, while Young Scots ultimately refrained from doing so and instead provided an effective campaigning force for the Liberal Party. Moreover, broadly Young Scots and Nationalistes share many of the characteristics of contemporaneous European nationalist movements: they were young, urban, and professional.103 Crucially, it was a range of distinctively Scottish- and Francophone Quebec-based institutions, notably, education, religion, and profession, that moulded Young Scots and Nationalistes. It is also striking that both sets of nationalists were imbued with a religious outlook, which fostered a moral tone to their political activity. The adherence of Young Scots and Nationalistes to, respectively, the Presbyterian United Free Church and the Catholic Church in Quebec was key. This had a bearing on the liberalism that they expressed. The following chapters examine their engagement with empire, state, and civil society.

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4 Empire and Industry1

It was the Boer War and subsequent imperial policies that, in different ways, prompted the formation and the continued activism of the Young Scots and Nationalistes through this period. This chapter seeks to situate Scottish and French Canadian nationalists within the contrasting positions that Scotland and Quebec enjoyed as components of the British Empire and within the contrasting patterns and levels of industrialization that Scotland and Quebec experienced. Industrialization in these nations is placed within the context of empire since it was inextricably linked to the British Empire. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed a relative decline in both Britain’s political and economic position. In the following two sections – Political Empire and Industrial Empire – the emergence of liberal nationalists in Scotland and Quebec is related to the changing political and economic character of the Empire. These liberal nationalists are firstly situated in relation to the key political policies pursued by British governments in response to its relative decline. Secondly, I outline the general patterns of development that prevailed in Scotland and Quebec, shaping the thinking of these nationalists. The final section concludes that, while the differing patterns of development in these nations shaped much of their rhetoric, it was their different responses to British political policies that was paramount. Moreover, the Empire was influential in another way: both sets of nationalists, for different reasons, employed a liberal conception of the British Empire. Thus, the character of the Empire also contributed to shaping the character of the nationalism that was expressed.

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political empire During this period, three policy areas attest to the increasingly “predatory” stance that British policy began to exhibit toward its possessions: the South African War, tariff reform and imperial unity, and imperial defence. These three policy areas are examined in turn, and some general background information is provided, together with an analysis of the response of the nationalists. It is worth noting that this general predatory stance is evident, with some important differences, in both the British Conservative and Liberal governments of this era, not least since the leading Liberal Imperialists of the first half of this period attained positions of power in the second: notably, Herbert Asquith became prime minister, and Sir  Edward Grey foreign secretary. This predatory approach was double-edged since it affected both domestic and imperial policy. This is highlighted by the responses of the Young Scots and the Nationalistes: the former responded to its Scottish/ British domestic implications, while the latter addressed the implications for the Dominion of Canada from a French Canadian perspective. This approach was experienced most acutely among Britain’s imperial possessions: the Dominions and colonies of the British Empire. The Nationalistes’ response was, therefore, decidedly more Nationalist than the Young Scots’ more Liberal response. More specifically, the Nationalistes were Canadian in their nationalism, and the Young Scots British in their liberalism. South African War The South African War, or Boer War (1899–1902), brought both the Young Scots’ Society and the Quebec Nationaliste movement into being. Britain’s initial interest in Southern Africa was strategic: it sought to secure sea lanes and establish a “stopping-off” post en route to India. As the British began to settle in South Africa, however, they increasingly infringed on the established Dutch-speaking Boer population of the Cape Colony. With the abolition of slavery by the British Parliament in 1833 a sizable proportion of the Boer population together with their slaves trekked north into the interior of the colony to look for better land and to escape British jurisdiction. They established themselves in two settlements: the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State. The British thought them

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relatively unimportant, and unlikely to be anglicized, with the result that they were granted independence in 1852 and 1854 respectively (one advantage was that they acted as buffer states between Britain’s Cape Colony and the African hinterland). Following its economic failure Britain briefly annexed the Transvaal in 1877, but independence was returned in 1881 following a successful four months Boer rebellion (the “first Boer War”). Britain’s interest in the Afrikaner states was renewed with the discovery of diamonds in the 1860s, and especially following the discovery of gold in the 1880s (the richest gold deposits lay in the Transvaal).2 By the late 1890s the interests of the British government and Paul Kruger’s Transvaal Republic were clearly at odds. Realizing that prosperity and authority in South Africa would no longer rest on agriculture but on minerals, the former envisioned that South Africa could become the sort of dynamic economic and political entity that Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and, informally, Argentina had become within the Empire.3 Given the increasing economic rivalry that Britain faced, the associated loss of markets and resources, and a more general weakening of Britain’s economic and political influence in the world, a prosperous South Africa under British influence became a tantalizing prospect. In contrast, by giving them the necessary resources to modernize and expand, gold gave the Boers under Kruger the opportunity to finally break free from dependence on the British. The Transvaal increasingly became the economic motor of Southern Africa: it strengthened its ties with the Orange Free State; it became the focus for the British colonies of the Cape and Natal; and it sought its own railway link to the sea (German financiers were only too willing to step in when British markets were closed to the Transvaal).4 Thus, as the Transvaal appeared to be moving further away from British influence,5 British efforts became increasingly desperate.6 The desperate nature of these efforts merely strengthened the Boers’ resolve, uniting them behind Kruger’s hard-line position. The intransigence with which these positions were held led to war, which broke out in 1899. War brought a jingoistic fervour to both Scotland and much of English-speaking Canada. In Scotland it was the combination of electoral defeat amid the tumult of the Boer War, which formed the immediate backdrop and impetus to the formation of the Young Scots’ Society. The Liberals failed to defeat the ruling Conservatives and their Liberal Unionist allies in the “khaki” British general

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election of 1900. The result marked the second successive general election defeat for the Liberals. In Scotland the outcome was especially significant: for the first time since 1832, the Liberal Party found itself, in terms of the share of seats, in the minority.7 Nowhere was this more evident than in industrial west central Scotland. In the self-proclaimed “Second City of the Empire,” Glasgow, the Liberals failed to win a single seat. Yet in Edinburgh and in the east the Liberal Party maintained its dominance, and it was here that the YSS was born. Several reasons explain the east/west split in Scotland’s political geography. First, 1886 had proved to be a watershed year in Scotland’s political history. Liberal Unionists had split from the Liberal Party following Prime Minister Gladstone’s adoption of Irish Home Rule. Their support came from west of Scotland industrialists, especially those with business interests in Ulster, and the West’s Protestant proletariat, which was proud of the achievements of the Empire and resentful at the influx of Irish Catholic workers, whom they accused of undercutting their wages.8 Their loyalty to Liberal Unionism in 1900 was assured given the rise in orders that heavy industry in the Clyde valley enjoyed during the Boer War. Secondly, the Liberal Party itself was still in a state of disarray following Gladstone’s retirement. Gladstone’s departure had left something of an ideological vacuum within the Liberal Party. Three factions struggled for dominance. Lord Rosebery, the former Liberal prime minister (1892–95), and his Liberal Imperialist followers, including prominent Liberals Asquith and Haldane, sought to tap the “new imperialism” by linking an aggressive foreign policy with social reform at home, and in the process dropped Irish Home Rule from its platform; by doing so they sought to recapture the initiative from the Unionists.9 In Scotland such a vision entailed “the subordination of Scottish national identity to the mission of the British imperial state, and the subordination of popular government to the guidance of a wealthy educated elite.”10 Radicals instead remained loyal to the Gladstonian tradition and its advocacy of policies such as land reform and temperance. Within this radical wing of the Liberal Party there was deep unease at Britain’s handling of the rebellious Boer republics. These radicals became known as the “pro-Boers,” viewing the conflict as a clear case of the rights of small nations against the power of an aggressive empire11 – a familiar Gladstonian theme. Caught in the middle was the Liberal leader, Henry Campbell

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Bannerman, who sought to reconcile the two factions. The South African war had merely accentuated these deep divisions and brought them to the fore: Liberal Imperialists urged the Liberal leadership to embrace the mood of patriotism that engulfed the country, while radicals opposed the war, believing it to be morally unjust. The election results themselves showed that so-called pro-Boer MPs lost badly, while MPs identified as Liberal Imperialists did better.12 Gladstonians were outraged at the result and at what the once-great party had been reduced to. The Edinburgh Evening News remained loyal to the Liberal Party and under its editor, Hector MacPherson, established a reputation as a newspaper that was willing to question the prevailing climate of jingoism. MacPherson bemoaned that “Liberalism from being a definite creed became a bundle of cheap expedients, and candidates from being the missionaries of great principles degenerated into bands of strolling political players.”13 In the aftermath of the general election a series of letters appeared in MacPherson’s newspaper, and they sought to identify ways in which Liberalism in the Gladstonian tradition could be revived; the discussion led ultimately to the formation of the Young Scots’ Society.14 Correspondents coalesced around the political education of young men. Initial correspondence had identified young men as being key to the revival of Liberalism. Their current political apathy was related to the fact that “in early manhood interest in these things [politics] is seldom aroused and little cultivated.”15 Liberal Clubs were accused of giving “too much attention to billiards and kindred amusements and too little to the great ends for which the club is founded.”16 The Liberal Party’s organization more generally had failed to reach out to a new generation of Liberals. In the new era of mass politics following the Third Reform Act’s extension of the franchise in 1884, this could prove fatal. What was required was an association to educate young men in Liberal principles. This was particularly important given the partisan newspaper press: both of Scotland’s leading broadsheet newspapers, the Glasgow Herald and the (Edinburgh) Scotsman, supported the Unionists, and they were vociferous supporters of the Boer War. MacPherson himself actively participated in the debate and advocated a return to the “founding fathers” of Liberalism: what we need at the present moment is not more wire-pulling but the illuminating power of Liberal ideas. What we need is not

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a new programme framed in the interests of party expediency, but an educative propaganda which leads the minds of the people beyond the dust and din of temporary skirmishes to the contemplation of those politico-economic principles which in the hands of the Cobdens, the Brights and the Gladstones made the Liberal Party a magnificent instrument of democratic progress.17 One correspondent suggested that the prospective association should be a distinctively Scottish one: “Let our aim be not merely the formation of a local club for young Liberals, but to found a society which will appeal to young Scots everywhere,” a society imbued with “Scottish ideals – of the country which produced a Wallace and Bruce, a Carlyle and Burns.”18 This was to be a constant theme in YSS history: whether the emphasis was placed on Liberalism or nationalism. It is reasonable to assume, however, that this national sentiment is what gave rise to the name of the association: the Young Scots’ Society. An initial meeting was held on 26 October 1900, and a resolution was adopted in favour of forming an association “for the purpose of educating young men in the fundamental principles of Liberalism and of encouraging and stimulating them in the study of social science and economics.” In total forty individuals signed as founder members of the association, and a twelve-man committee was formed to draw up a constitution.19 On 8 November the Society was formally constituted: four men, Thomas Adams, John Rose, Alexander Cullen, and James Matson, met to formalize the Society; only Cullen and Matson continued to be active within the Society.20 Thus it was from its birthplace in Edinburgh that it gradually spread throughout Scotland. The Young Scots played a key role in opposition to the South African War. Initially, at least, there was tremendous enthusiasm and support for the Boer War in Scotland, particularly in industrial west central Scotland, given the industrial interests already alluded to and the fact that Scotland as a whole, and the Scottish Highlands in particular, provided a fertile recruiting ground for the British military.21 Opposition voices were drowned out: their meetings were condemned by much of the press and frequently broken up by “jingo mobs.” As the war progressed, however, and no quick military victory was in sight, dissenting voices became louder. The YSS provided a forum for these dissenting voices through their organization of

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public meetings.22 Young Scots’ Handbooks, recounting the history of the Society, describe its activity during the Boer War in distinctly Liberal terms, as defending the right of free speech.23 Most notable was the organization of a meeting addressed by the Hon. John X. Merriman, the future premier of South Africa, with a platform party that included a veritable who’s who of Scottish radicals and Scottish Home Rulers.24 It was J.M. Hogge who was instrumental in organizing the meeting. Various obstacles had to be overcome before the meeting could go ahead. The Music Hall in Edinburgh was originally booked to host the meeting, but was withdrawn when the Scotsman newspaper led an outcry against the meeting. An application was then made to the Town Council to secure the Waverly Market. A majority passed the application, and the meeting went ahead on 26 April 1901. The meeting itself attracted an audience of three thousand and was described as “a splendid vindication, against great odds, of the right to free speech.”25 This event occurred just as public opinion in Scotland began to change, disillusioned by the increasing length of the conflict. Further meetings followed, addressed by pro-Boers such as David Lloyd George in Edinburgh and Leonard Courtney in Glasgow.26 The Young Scots’ Society played a key role in augmenting pre-existing anti-war protests. The escalating expense of the South African War, both financially and morally, discredited this imperial vision. It is estimated that there were 27,927 deaths in “concentration camps” established by the British to house largely Boer women and children made homeless following the systematic razing of some 30,000 Boer homes.27 Henry Campbell Bannerman’s firm condemnation of these “methods of barbarism” greatly enhanced his standing as leader of the Liberal Party; and it was the Young Scots’ Society and their reinvigoration of Gladstonian principles that emerged strongest among the competing voices within the Liberal Party. It was they who insisted that attention had to be directed toward reform at home (rather than imperial expedition), and key to this was the revival of the campaign for Scottish Home Rule.28 Indeed, many Young Scots held a private admiration for the Boers’ struggle for independence. An anonymous Young Scot recalled: Young Scotism captured the imagination of youth at a time when we were deep in the abyss of the South African War. No student of Scottish history could but be torn at that distressful period

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between allegiance to the flag and whole-hearted admiration for the gallant Republics which were fighting what they believed to be the battle of freedom and independence.29 Moreover, J.M. Hogge acknowledged, in a Gladstonian vein, that “The Young Scots’ Society had its origin in defending the rights of nationalities. It has never forgotten, throughout its career, that it was needful to concentrate on this view.”30 The Young Scot Rev. James Barr condemned British aggression in South Africa and supported the Boers, whom he believed were simply defending “their hearth and home.” Yet, he was critical of the Boers’ denial of rights to the native population of southern Africa.31 However, an overtly nationalist response was marginal, and it was restricted to the Scottish nationalist fringe. The eccentric nationalist Theodore Napier marked by his insistence on wearing Highland costume, exemplified this position.32 His journal, the Fiery Cross, drew comparisons between the Scots and the Boers and was particularly critical when the Boers finally surrendered their independence.33 During an anti-war meeting in Edinburgh in spring 1900, a jingo mob led by Edinburgh University students had stormed the platform and singled out the prominent Home Ruler and chairman of the Edinburgh Stop-the-War Campaign for a beating (easily identifiable in his Highland garb).34 In Henri Bourassa’s words: “The nationalist movement was born out of the official participation of Canada in the South African War.”35 Bourassa’s resignation from Canada’s House of Commons in October 1899 effectively marks the birth of the Nationaliste movement in Quebec.36 Bourassa was a rising young star in the Liberal ranks and a protégé of Canada’s first French Canadian prime minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Bourassa was infuriated that Laurier had reneged on his declaration that Canada would not participate in Britain’s dispute with the Boers of South Africa without the recall of Parliament, especially given that Canada itself was not threatened.37 Laurier had agreed to allow a contingent of Canadian troops to be sent to South Africa on a voluntary basis under pressure both from British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain and from British Canadians, inside and outside Parliament. In Francophone Quebec, Laurier’s move was criticized for going too far; within Englishspeaking Canada it did not go far enough. These concerns were made clear in Bourassa’s letter of resignation addressed to Laurier and published in La Patrie. In particular

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Bourassa underlined that Canadian troops had been sent without a prior debate in the House of Commons. The danger was that Laurier’s action would set a precedent for future Canadian participation in British colonial conflicts.38 These views found favour with Canadian nationalists in English Canada, and with their most prominent spokesman, Goldwin Smith. Bourassa entered into correspondence with Smith. Like Bourassa, he was a Liberal in the Gladstonian tradition, who roundly condemned Laurier’s action. During the war Smith sought to include in his Weekly Sun newspaper the views of Bourassa, and those of Morley from Britain and Merriman from South Africa.39 Smith’s response was the exception, because more generally Bourassa’s stand was met with a barrage of hostile criticism in the English Canadian press, particularly in Ontario with its vociferous Orange lobby. English-speaking Canadians – especially those of British origin – shared Scots’ initial enthusiasm for the war. As Carman Miller demonstrates, English Canadians were subject to many of the same cultural influences that were prevalent in Britain. Many exhibited an exaggerated loyalty to the Empire, for instance.40 However, there was a quite different reaction in French Canada. While sections of the English Canadian press denounced Henri Bourassa as a “disloyal Anglophobist” – his action was viewed as disloyal to Britain in its time of need – the young French Canadian elite enthusiastically greeted his protests in the Canadian House of Commons. As Armand Lavergne noted, far from being anti-British, Bourassa’s action was entirely consistent with protests made by young Liberals within the British Parliament.41 Future British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was one such pro-Boer MP. To the young elite of French Canada Bourassa appeared the only politician willing to stand up to English Canada: he became “the idol of all the young students, despite the conspiracy of silence or, occasionally, slander, concocted and launched against him by the government press.”42 Lavergne was one of those young students. He corresponded with Bourassa and took it upon himself to distribute Bourassa’s writings among his fellow students in the Law Faculty at Laval University.43 The crux of Bourassa’s opposition to the deployment of Canadian troops to fight the Boers was that such an action would set a precedent that would bind Canada to fight in all Britain’s future imperial wars. Bourassa was in no doubt as to why an increased contribution

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was being exacted from Britain’s colonies: it was the inevitable result of Britain’s own industrial and military decline.44 In addition, the Boer War witnessed a new development: the presence of dominion contingents on the British side. This seemed to suggest a new reliance on imperial solidarity, perhaps to compensate for Britain’s own military weakness.45 Moreover, the war had revealed the poor health of Britain’s working class like no social investigation before it: many of those who volunteered were unfit for active service. To Henri Bourassa, these developments only reinforced his view that the Dominions and colonies of the Empire would increasingly be seen as a source of military manpower for Britain’s army and navy. In Bourassa’s words “military contributions from the colonies to Great Britain, in men and treasure, but mainly men, constitute British Imperialism.”46 However, it was not only whether Canada should contribute to Britain’s imperial wars that occupied French Canadians, but the very nature of the South African conflict itself. Olivar Asselin made it clear that it was not that French Canadians were unwilling to fight for Britain, rather it was the injustice of the Boer War which was at the root of French Canadian reluctance to support this conflict. Writing under the pseudonym Jules Vernier, he wrote: So as men, and especially as British subjects, we bitterly regret to see a Canadian contingent massacred abroad, we regret to see the blood of the generous soldiers of Albion flow freely for a cause so unworthy of such martyrs. But in the name of justice, we send at the same time our warmest congratulations to the Boer fighters for the marvellous energy with which they repulsed the brutal invasion and often defend what gives value to life: the home and Country.47 French Canadian empathy toward the Boers was perhaps understandable: both were European-origin linguistic and religious imperial minorities. This parallel was alluded to in an article reproduced in Les Débats from the English radical newspaper Reynold’s Newspaper, the same journal in which the Young Scots would later have a regular column: The French from there [Canada] clearly recognize that what is happening today in Africa could, if the opportunity presents

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itself, also happen in Canada. They see that the nation’s money is spent to organize troops without the nation being consulted (returning to the causes that provoked the uprising of the American colonies), that a sense of haughty arrogance is spreading among the English [sic], and that the ideas of militarism are circulating within a peaceful population for which war should remain unknown.48 The South African War proved to be a huge financial drain on the British exchequer. In addition, the shortcomings it had exposed in the British military necessitated a rethinking of Britain’s overall defence strategy.49 The war also had a profound effect on the Canadian military and prompted its steps toward its eventual Canadianization.50 The establishment of the Canadian Militia Council mirrored the recently set up British Army Council and brought to an end a system in which British officers held the supreme command of the Canadian Militia. The Nationalistes had been severely critical of the role that General Hutton (and that of the Scottish-born Governor General Lord Minto) had played in stirring up support for Canadian participation in the South African War.51 The Militia Bill of 1904 sought to establish that the commander of the Canadian Militia would be Canadian and that the Militia would, above all, be responsible for the defence of Canada. However, to the Imperialists in the Conservative Party and particularly to their most visible spokesman, Sam Hughes, this law threatened Canada’s relationship with Britain and suggested that the government was bending to pressure from its Nationalist wing. Hughes submitted that the bill “was inspired not by the Minister of Militia but by the member for Labelle [Bourassa],”52 suggesting a marked coincidence of interest between the Nationalistes and the Liberal government, confirmed by Bourassa: “the nationalist group’s relations with the Liberal government were excellent then”53 Nevertheless, many of Francophone Quebec’s young elite continued to engage with Bourassa’s ideas. Discussion groups were formed to examine these ideas, together with the ideas of more overtly religious nationalists. Olivar Asselin established one such group, which brought together a group of young journalists from many of Francophone Quebec’s leading newspapers. The group included Omer Héroux and Omer Chaput from respectively the Conservative Le Journal, and Albert Pelland and Émile Bélanger from the Liberal La Patrie and La Presse, thereby covering the

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political spectrum in Quebec. The group was also in contact with Armand Lavergne in Quebec City and Napoléon Garceau in Drummondville.54 This informal grouping was the genesis of the Ligue nationaliste canadienne, or, as it was then known, the Cercle nationaliste.55 Anticipating the Ligue’s official launch, several of its founders sought Bourassa’s support and advice. Omer Héroux wanted him to undertake an official role in the organization of the Ligue,56 while Bourassa offered Armand Lavergne this advice: “I congratulate you on organizing your league, and repeat my advice to you, if I may: remain firm on Canadian ground, which also implies the preservation of French-Canadian sentiment – Canada having been composed of two peoples.”57 Indeed, despite declining to undertake an official role in the new group, Bourrassa’s influence was everywhere. He was effectively the group’s spokesman, without being a member.58 It was Bourassa who changed their name from Cercle nationaliste to Ligue nationaliste and who ensured that the Ligue’s program was avowedly Canadian, without hyphenation.59 Moreover, he sought to reassure Wilfrid Laurier that the Ligue was entirely Canadian and not French Canadian in its objectives. Enclosing a copy of the Ligue’s program he wrote: “I do not know who or what made you think that it is a French or anti-English movement. I know almost all the young men and I know that their personal ideas are, like the thought of their league, essentially Canadian.”60 The Ligue was officially launched on 1 March 1903 at a public rally held at the Monument National in Montreal. According to Lavergne ten young men in Montreal founded the Ligue: they included Omer Héroux, Omer Chaput, and Lavergne himself, “the others are dead or I have forgotten their names.”61 The omission of Asselin’s name is curious.62 These were in Héroux’s equally vague phrase the “ten or twelve young men, without a name, without a reputation.”63 However Héroux was in no doubt as to who was the instigator: “it is Mr Asselin who was the initiator and principal worker in the new society.”64 Asselin was the driving force: “he was the instigator, the creator of the movement and its master worker … he was also the great organizer.”65 Asselin became the Ligue’s president, Héroux its secretary, and Lavergne its Quebec City organizer. Yet it was not until August of that year that it came to the public’s attention. The declaration by the Congress of the Empire Chambers of Commerce, held in Montreal on 20 August 1903, reaffirmed that Britain’s colonies should continue to contribute to wars

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in defence of the Empire and prompted the Ligue to hold a protest meeting. Bourassa was the main attraction, as he would be at many of the Ligue’s meetings.66 Tariff Reform and Imperial Unity Following the close of the South African War the energies of the YSS were channelled toward the replacement of the ruling Conservative government, the first step to the implementation of its radical agenda. An opportunity for “propaganda work” came in 1903, when Joseph Chamberlain embarked on a protectionist policy that gave priority to trade within the Empire.67 Before his departure from the Liberal Party in 1886, Chamberlain had nurtured the idea of pursuing a dual policy of social intervention at home and increased unity within the Empire. He was convinced that the future lay with the great empires and federations (particularly Russia and the United States), therefore only by uniting Britain with its “white colonies,” and with their potential for economic growth, could industrial leadership and great power status be retained.68 Chamberlain’s attempts to introduce tariff reform and to foster greater imperial unity spoke to an economic reality faced by Britain during this period: stronger competition and the closure of previously open markets forced British governments to pursue alternative markets and resources from within their existing Dominions and colonies. British trade reflected this: in the period from the late nineteenth century to the eve of the First World War, Britain became increasingly tied to its Empire and less to Europe: in 1860 its exports to the Empire were just 27 percent of its total, by 1913 the figure had risen to 39 percent.69 Chamberlain used his tenure as British colonial secretary to push for the twin goals of tariff reform and greater imperial unity: indeed the former was a means to the latter. At the Imperial Conference of 1897 he had probed the possibility of greater political ties, but at the following conference in 1902 he provided a more coherent plan: the Empire would be a free-trade empire with a common tariff against foreign countries, and preference would be given to colonial staples in the British market, while British manufactured goods would receive protection in both colonial markets and at home.70 This was the blueprint for an imperial Zollverein. The Empire was the central issue in Chamberlain’s Tariff Reform campaign of 1903.71 Yet it was domestic protection rather than imperial preference that received

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the greater support.72 It was this aspect that was attacked by the Young Scots: Liberals regarded Chamberlain’s espousal of protectionism as a “heresy.”73 The Scottish historian Ian Hutchison argues that it was Chamberlain’s tariff reform campaign that was “almost on its own, the crucial destroyer of the recently cemented Unionist strength in Scotland.”74 The Young Scots’ Society played its part. Chamberlain launched his campaign in Glasgow in October 1903.75 In response the Young Scots immediately launched a Free Trade campaign, directed by a Free Trade Committee, with Councillor James Leishman as convener, and charged with conducting the campaign and raising funds. Both met with success. Its journal, The Young Scot, estimated that during its three-month-long “open-air” campaign in 1903 a million leaflets had been distributed and an audience of 60,000 had been attracted to 110 YSS meetings. The campaign involved speakers touring many of the towns of central Scotland and the Borders, using horse and van, choosing specifically Tory counties to pursue their message and concluding that “if candidates could be secured who could rouse the industrial portions of the constituencies there would be no doubt but that the Liberals could even sweep the Tory west.”76 The breakdown of these figures is revealing: 20,000 attendees were accounted for from a Free Trade Demonstration held in King’s Park, Edinburgh, on 27 June (although not under the auspices of the YSS, the Society provided eighteen of the twenty-four speakers present), much smaller meetings make up the remainder: eighteen meetings in Edinburgh, nine in Glasgow, three in Falkirk, and a tour of thirtyfive small towns in the west and Borders (areas of Unionist strength), together with meetings addressed by Young Scots during two byelections.77 Therefore, although the YSS was unable to consistently attract large numbers to its meetings, the sheer number of meetings reveals the determination with which the campaign was pursued. The Young Scot reported that the tour identified the taxation of food as the key weakness of the Tariff Reform campaign, although there was potential support for tariff reform as a means of retaliation against Britain’s rivals.78 Yet tariff reform remained deeply unpopular, and the strong appeal of cheap food and the overriding perception that protectionists were simply pursuing their own vested interests sealed its fate.79 As with Young Scots’ activity during the Boer War, the Free Trade campaign was couched in distinctly Liberal language that reflected

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the enduring appeal of the classical liberalism of Gladstone and Richard Cobden.80 The educational aspect of the campaign is important here. The Young Scots sought not merely to secure Home Rule for Scotland but to recapture the spirit of progressivism that had been lost with the triumph of Unionism and to secure “Scotland for Liberalism” (the motto of their journal). The syllabi of individual YSS branches’ reflected this aspect, therefore, with lectures and debates on the study of political economy, in the belief that “enquiry, discussion, and study will strengthen a belief in Free Trade as suited to Great Britain, and that a return to a Protectionist Policy would prove disastrous to Great Britain, and destructive to the unity of the Empire.”81 Scotland, and Britain as a whole, emphatically returned to the Liberal Party in the 1906 general election.82 The YSS played its part, by joining a united front organized by the Scottish Liberal Association that brought together the Liberal League from the right and the YSS from the left to form the Scottish Free Trade Union.83 Nevertheless, the success of the free trade campaign and the apparent unity that returned to the Liberal Party did not sway the Young Scots from their goal of achieving a deeper appreciation of Liberal principles: But with Free Trade out of the way we question whether there would be the same unity of purpose. There is, therefore, the greater necessity for Young Scots to steadfastly pursue their scheme of educative work in order that a knowledge and an understanding of principle may give them the touchstone they need in deciding where they stand on public issues.84 The YSS was critical of “official liberalism,” or the Liberal Party establishment, which had failed to secure liberal principles: “Official Liberalism has killed and is killing the principles which ought to guide and inspire the growth of this country”; it was unresponsive to the social crisis facing Scotland; instead it was characterized by “the apathy and lethargy of political thought.”85 In line with other white colonies, the Laurier government agreed in principle to “mutual preferences.” Indeed Laurier had already established a preferential tariff for imports from other parts of the British Empire in 1897. However, Mason Wade argues that it was the dramatic growth in the popularity of the Nationaliste movement that forced (or perhaps allowed) Laurier to withdraw his apparent acquiescence toward the policy of imperial centralization.86 As a

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follower of the “English School” of liberalism,87 Bourassa was keen to place this debate within the wider liberal tradition. He invoked the Liberal statesman Richard Cobden in opposition to protectionism and imperial centralization. He regretted that, given the strength of the United States, Canada was unable to practice Cobden’s theory: “In Canada, owing to the neighbourhood of the United States, apart from any other motive, we have been precluded from carrying out Cobden’s theories.”88 Bourassa recognized the importance of geopolitics, a factor absent in Cobden’s original theory.89 Moreover, Bourassa argued that neither the colonies nor the British consumer would benefit from a policy of “mutual preferences.”90 Olivar Asselin speculated as to where the impulse toward greater imperial unity lay: They [the British] have quickly realized that their industries are routinized and that their transport companies do not recognize that they must refuse the transport of foreign goods under the pretext of patriotism; and to their amazement they see their business decline and bankruptcy increase. They are too English and conservative to change their manufacturing methods. Those who have always preached the open door have created the opposite, the closed market. Hence imperial federation.91 The failure to innovate and to invest in new technology was indeed a key weakness facing British industry at this time.92 Crucially, the Nationalistes were opposed to any arrangement that would retard Canadian development. Despite initial enthusiasm from the Canadian business community, it soon became clear that Chamberlain’s policy was merely a return to the old colonial system, whereby Canada produced raw materials in return for British manufactured goods. As Asselin later pointed out, there were now substantial interests with a stake in the industrial development of Canada: “However weighty the interests of the Western wheat grower … [they] are counterbalanced by the ever growing industrial interests of the East.”93 The Nationalistes’ position was clear. They would not support any change in trade relations that would be constitutionally binding, or that would “hinder the normal growth of Canadian industries.”94 The result was that both in Britain and in the Empire more generally tariff reform proved unpalatable: “The failure of tariff reform

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was the failure, not only of an attempt to unify the Empire by imperial preference, but the failure of radical Unionism itself.”95 After 1905 British Liberal governments were much less concerned with imperial integration than their Conservative and Unionist predecessors. Although as imperially minded as their predecessors, they held a quite different ethos: far from promoting imperial unity, preferential tariffs would set British interests against those of other parts of the Empire and thereby make the very idea of empire loathsome to the majority of people.96 Professions of colonial ardour in Australia and New Zealand were now an embarrassment.97 For example, at the 1911 Imperial Conference, New Zealand Premier Sir Joseph Ward urged both the formation of an imperial council and an imperial parliament, with responsibility for both defence and foreign affairs. The prime ministers of Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Britain itself quickly shot this down.98 British Liberal governments continued to search for imperial support: Imperial Conferences were held in 1907, 1909, and 1911. One issue came to dominate these conferences: imperial defence. It was the sole topic of the 1909 gathering.99 However, in terms of imperial defence Liberal policy differed little from the Conservatives: additional attempts were made to bring the dominions into common defence arrangements and to give their leaders a greater insight into the dangers affecting the Empire.100 This was done through the Imperial Defence Committee. Thus, from 1909, imperial defence and, above all, Britain’s naval race with Germany became a dominant issue in both British domestic and imperial politics. Imperial Defence Since the time of Lord Castlereagh, Britain had sought to maintain a two-power standard in relation to its navy, to maintain naval hegemony by having more capital ships than the next two navies combined. The Royal Navy maintained this standard between 1817 and the 1890s.101 Successive British governments argued that, as an archipelago of islands off continental Europe’s western shores, Britain was disproportionately dependent on its navy for both trade and defence. But Germany’s dramatic increase in the manufacture of short-range Dreadnought-type battleships, and the prediction that Germany would reach parity with the British Dreadnaughts fleet by 1912, threatened Britain’s historic role. The naval race with Germany

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began in 1900 and escalated by 1909. It was Herbert Asquith’s Liberal government that faced the task of meeting this challenge. David Lloyd George, the radical pro-Boer who was now the chancellor of the exchequer (1908–15), had the problem of financing the manufacture of additional Dreadnoughts, in addition to the Liberals’ ambitious program of domestic social reform. It was clear that revenue had to be increased at home, but there was also a growing feeling that the Empire itself should share the cost of imperial defence. Britain put pressure on the Dominions of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to make a contribution, specifically to the formation of an imperial navy. Both Britain and Canada were linked by the “Atlantic orientation” of the British Admiralty. The British response to the German challenge was not to seek a balance of power on the European continent but rather to rely on the resources of English-speaking societies overseas. In practice this meant enlisting the support of the great agricultural nations within the British Empire, Canada and Australia, which would be crucial to economic warfare. It was these nations that supplied much of Germany’s raw materials and food imports; they would also be well placed to capture German shipping. In addition, it required the integration of the Dominions within Britain’s naval-based strategies. The British government argued that the Dominion’s extensive export trade with Britain meant that they shared an interest in naval security.102 David Lloyd George had to balance two competing demands: those from the radical wing of the Liberal Party for social intervention and those from the Admiralty for Dreadnoughts, underlining that the 1909 Budget was as much a social welfare budget as it was a budget of naval rearmament. Lloyd George himself fought for social spending over Dreadnoughts.103 Domestically, the demands being made by the British Admiralty necessitated increased levels of income tax, but, in order not to alienate the Liberal’s important manufacturing constituency, the greatest effort was directed toward the taxation of unearned income, in particular land (the Liberals had a long standing commitment to land reform).104 This policy was spelt out in the People’s Budget of 1909, which brought forth an inevitable backlash from Britain’s landed gentry. Britain’s second chamber, the unelected House of Lords, where the landed interest dominated, failed to pass the budget and plunged Britain into constitutional crisis. Two general elections later, in January and December

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1910, the crisis was ended only when the king threatened to create as many Liberal peers as was necessary to pass the budget. Young Scots gave their support to the progressive aspect of the budget, to the People’s Budget and land taxation. Land reform was a defining issue of this period, and, together with the abolition of the House of Lords’ veto, it dominated the general elections of 1910. It was regarded as a tenet of the Liberal faith, and an important one for the Young Scots. The Young Scot John L. Kinloch was dedicated to the issue, relocating to England to work for the English land reformer and radical Josiah Wedgwood. The topics chosen by Young Scot speakers in 1910 and 1911 reflect its popularity: it was second only to free trade in 1910, and second only to Home Rule in 1911.105 In 1909, the YSS took time from its Home Rule agitation to back the campaign in support of the Land Value duties contained in the People’s Budget. This was a key part of the budget, compromising half the text of what was a very long finance bill.106 Young Scots participated in a march and rally on 18 September 1909 at Glasgow Green. As one of the participating organizations, the YSS had its own platform (one of eleven platforms, including an Independent Labour Party platform) and Young Scot speakers participated on several others.107 The provision for Land Value duties brought forth a strong reaction from landowners and landlords, and from the House of Lords, where they constituted the majority. Opposition was strongest in England, for, as Avner Offer notes, the land reformer Henry George’s ideas had already gained a foothold in Scotland.108 Both Scotland’s Solicitor-General Alexander Ure and Lord Advocate Thomas Shaw had been key backers of the Land Values (Scotland) Bill of 1906, which had been responsible for securing the Liberal Party’s official commitment to land reform along these lines. Land reformers sought YSS support for their campaign, itself an indication of the organizational strength of the YSS: “Our Union [the Land Values and Free Industry Union] intend to carry an openair campaign in the Central Division of Glasgow during the summer months. We thought that the work could be much more successfully done if we joined with the Young Scots to educate the people of the Central Division in Radical Politics.”109 However, in classical Liberal tradition, Young Scots opposed the other key aspect of the bill: the increased expenditure on armaments. The reduction in army and navy expenditure had been a long-standing policy commitment.110 Roland Muirhead and the Rev. James Barr, in particular, took issue

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with the proposed escalation in armaments. Discussion of Norman Angell’s anti-war book, The Great Illusion, was prominent on Young Scot syllabi in the years immediately before the outbreak of war. Indeed, as late as January 1914 the Young Scots’ National Council protested against the proposed increase in naval estimates, believing it to be “detrimental to public credit and social well-being, without any justification in the international situation, and likely to provoke an intensified naval rivalry.”111 In Canada, the same reality was experienced quite differently, and its consequences were far more wide-reaching. In response to the call for a greater contribution to imperial defence, the Canadian House of Commons unanimously passed a general resolution on 29 March 1909, which acknowledged Canada’s responsibility for the financial burden incurred in the protection of its coastline and seaports. On 12  January 1910 Laurier’s Liberal government initiated the Naval Service Bill, seeking the construction of a small Canadian navy, which would cooperate with the British Royal Navy. In practice it meant the establishment of a permanent naval force comprising five cruisers and six destroyers. The navy would be under Canadian control, but during war – and with the consent of the Canadian Parliament – it would be put under imperial control.112 Therefore, this bill was not simply a capitulation to the demands of the British Admiralty; rather it represented an attempt at Canadian state-building. The bill failed to win the unanimous agreement of both English and French Canadians. Key sections in English Canada felt the bill did not go far enough: they favoured an immediate emergency contribution to Britain. Demands for a referendum on the issue were especially strong among French Canadians. The Nationalistes, in particular, were incensed: Canada was being asked to make a contribution it could ill afford, when much of the country remained undeveloped, when Canada’s own borders were not threatened, and, most unpalatable of all, the bill seemed to imply that Canada was automatically committed to participate in any British war. The Nationalistes had remained largely neutral in the federal election of 1908. It was quite a different story in the following federal election however. One issue dominated the 1911 Federal Election in Quebec: the naval question. The Nationalistes questioned whether Canada could afford such an enterprise and railed against the proposal to put the Canadian navy at Britain’s disposal, which once again undermined Canadian sovereignty. These themes were taken

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up by Jules Fournier: the Naval Bill effectively denied to Canada the ability to declare war; moreover, it was a very costly enterprise ($20  million) that removed resources from the construction of canals and railway lines, which were necessary for Canada’s development.113 Similarly, Bourassa argued that the preoccupation with imperial relations was effectively hindering Canada’s national development: “Let Canada be looked after first … If in order to do other people’s work we neglect our own, neither the British nor the Australians will come and help us in setting our house in order.”114 The move was interpreted in French Canada as a strengthening of imperial ties between Great Britain and Canada and a weakening of Canadian autonomy. Yet the Nationalistes did not deny that Canada should provide for its own defence. Bourassa stated what was at stake: “The FrenchCanadians, and especially the Nationalists … firmly believe that, if each self-governing part of the Empire look after its own defence according to its local conditions, its geographical configuration, and international environments, it will thereby make the most practical contribution to imperial defence.”115 Thus, only by taking responsibility for its own defence needs could Canada effectively contribute to the defence of the Empire. This was the position that Bourassa began to expound in a series of meetings held in Quebec (and one in Halifax, Nova Scotia) in July and August 1910.116 Olivar Asselin reiterated this position: that as long as a colony is a colony, she [Canada] is entitled to the armed protection of the Mother Country; that the colony which would build a navy to assist the Mother Country whenever the latter’s “honour” or the “integrity of her territory” is at stake – and these are the terms of the resolution of March 29 last – would be three times worse off than the Mother Country herself; and that Canada, considering the risks implied in her connection with Great Britain, would still be doing more than the ordinary duties of Nationhood by simply providing for the defence of her own territory.117 In contrast to Bourassa, however, he was willing to countenance some limited form of involvement in imperial defence,118 in making it quite clear that the Nationalistes’ were “anti-imperialist” and not “anti-militarist”:

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I willingly admit, however, that if we have a country worth fighting for, institutions worth defending at the cost of our blood, we must make the best possible arrangements to protect them. But that question calls for separate consideration. The only point at issue for the time being is our duty towards the Mother Country.119 An early warning for Laurier was the Nationaliste win in the Arthabaska-Drummond by-election in November 1910. The byelection was caused by the promotion of Lavergne’s uncle, the sitting Liberal MP, to the Senate. The Nationalistes had chosen a local farmer, Arthur Gilbert, and they had given him their full backing.120 In the federal election of the following year Bourassa and his supporters entered an alliance with Quebec’s Federal Conservatives, led by Frederick Monk. The federal Conservative leader, Robert Borden, gave Monk a free hand to run the Conservative campaign in Francophone Quebec (Borden’s supporters chose candidates for Quebec’s Anglophone ridings). The effect was that there was a marked divergence between the campaigns fought in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, in terms of the strategies, personalities, and issues involved. While the Conservative appeal in Quebec was Nationaliste, elsewhere it was avowedly imperialist; in Quebec the election was seen as a contest between Laurier and Bourassa, whereas in Englishspeaking Canada it was a contest between Laurier and Borden; and most revealing it was the Naval Bill that dominated the hustings in Quebec – elsewhere reciprocity dominated. Canada’s reciprocity agreement with the United States remained largely a non-issue among Quebec’s Francophone voters. Protectionist and imperialist big business took advantage of this, by donating funds to the Nationaliste campaign as a convenient way of defeating Laurier and the reciprocity agreement.121 Olivar Asselin and several other veterans of Nationaliste election campaigns, such as Joseph Rainville, stood for election; Asselin, for instance, did so in Montreal’s Saint Jacques riding. Bourassa, the de facto leader, did not run however, preferring to direct operations from Le Devoir, and making appearances on the hustings in support of Autonomiste candidates, as they frequently labelled themselves. Bourassa was in great demand; candidates perceived that his intervention on their behalf would be decisive.122 The election hustings were passionate affairs with brawls breaking out between

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supporters of Bourassa and Laurier.123 Yet, the election once again highlighted the ad hoc nature of the Nationalistes’ organization. The Nationalistes were not constituted as a political party; instead, each candidate was responsible for his own campaign. The experience of the Nationalistes’ “star candidate,” Olivar Asselin, illustrates this well. Asselin took it upon himself to write letters of introduction to “the great and the good” in Saint Jacques: tailored to the political complexion of the voter, Bleu or Rouge, Francophone or Anglophone.124 Moreover, although Asselin appeared to have ample volunteers, he had no one to coordinate his campaign. Therefore he called on his old friend Alfred Larocque for assistance: “I already have on hand a large number of active and intelligent men, but I do not see how I could get along without you.”125 And again: “If I told you that I consider your support as essential to my success, would you immediately come back to town?”126 By the following week Larocque was at Asselin’s side and coordinating offers of assistance.127 Yet, despite Larocque’s best efforts and the support of the English-language Canadian Century,128 Asselin was unsuccessful in his bid to become a member of Parliament. The alliance of Conservatives and Nationalistes won twentyseven seats (ten Conservatives and seventeen ConservativeNationalistes) and 48.1 percent of the vote.129 This represented a 7  percent increase and a gain of sixteen seats over the previous Conservative result in the 1908 federal election.130 While the Liberals maintained a majority of both votes and seats, the intervention of Nationaliste candidates had been dramatic. They had denied Laurier the solid support that he required of the Liberal Party’s most loyal province. Despite the fact that the most impassioned campaigning of the election had taken place in the urban ridings of Montreal, the twenty-one ridings that the Conservatives and Nationalistes won from the Liberals were almost all rural ridings, located in Northern and Eastern Quebec. Neatby speculates that the Nationalistes’ attempts to reinvigorate colonization (see chapter 6) may have enhanced their rural appeal.131 It may also have been, in part, a consequence of the fact that it was Armand Lavergne’s firm hand that directed the campaign in the Quebec City region.132 Yet Bourassa’s gamble that the Nationalistes would be able to influence the course of naval policy by holding the balance of power in the new Parliament did not pay off. Worse, he had effectively delivered Quebec into the arms of the imperialist Borden.133

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Nevertheless, the result was a particular testimony to the influence of Henri Bourassa, who was neither a member of government nor of the House of Commons.134 And yet, despite underlining Bourassa’s popularity in Quebec, the campaign once again demonstrated Bourassa’s failure to provide practical leadership and an organization for the Nationaliste movement. Without Bourassa’s leadership, the group of independents, elected on the Autonomiste ticket, soon fell apart. Many who were former Conservatives simply rejoined the Conservative Party and served as Conservative ministers in what was, unsurprisingly, an imperialist administration.135 In the next federal election the Nationalistes were conspicuous by their absence: Bourassa wrote an editorial in Le Devoir that was critical of the Conservative leader, while Lavergne did not seek re-election. The new Conservative administration and its prime minister, Borden (1911–20), sought to trade Canada’s naval contribution for a voice in Britain’s imperial foreign policy. In an agreement with Winston Churchill, as first lord of the British Admiralty (1911–15), the Borden government introduced the Naval Aid Bill to provide a grant of $35 million to the Royal Navy to allow it to build three dreadnoughts. The Bill divided the French Canadian members of Borden’s government. Frederick Monk, leader of Quebec’s Conservatives, had already resigned because of the government’s failure to keep its referendum pledge. Borden added to his government’s difficulties when he revealed the contents of his correspondence with Churchill, in which Churchill had maintained that Canadians could not build dreadnoughts, operate cruisers, or run an efficient navy, and argued for the perpetual use of British shipyards and Admiralty control. It was all further evidence of a more predatory stance toward the colonies. The bill was never passed. The Liberal-dominated Senate rejected it following the closure of prolonged debate in the House of Commons.136 There is bitter irony in the fact that the naval question, which so divided Canada, came to nought. Henri Bourassa maintained that between Confederation in 1867 and the South African War in 1899 there had been a tacit agreement that Canada’s defence commitments would be limited to the defence of its territory. This had now been repeatedly breached: we had successively the African expedition, the Navy Act of 1910, the “emergency contribution” of 1912, and participation in the present war as a dependency of England [sic]. So many

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breaches in the established order, so many knife-blows in the treaties concluded between Great Britain and Canada, so many illegal, unconstitutional measures. Until the agreements of 1867 are broken by mutual consent, England [sic] has no right to impose such obligations upon us.137 Bourassa’s view gives support to the contention that Britain was indeed behaving in a different fashion toward its possessions, occasioning a Nationalist response in Quebec, and a Liberal response in Scotland. Scots at the Empire’s centre and French Canadians at its edge experienced the same policies very differently, a reflection of the geopolitical pressures the British Empire faced and the contrasting demands it placed on its domestic and colonial constituencies as a result. The Empire also had a profound impact on the economies of Scotland and Quebec. This is examined now.

industrial empire The British Empire played a key role in fostering the industrial growth of both Scotland and Quebec. The Empire had successfully transformed itself from a commercial empire to an industrial empire. It provided Scottish industry with markets. In the guise of “gentlemanly capitalism”138 and through the City of London it provided Canada (and Quebec) with capital to launch its own industrialization. The Forth Railway Bridge, completed in 1890, stood as a monument to the entrepreneurial vitality of industrial Scotland and the prosperity underwritten by the Empire. The Empire provided the highly specialized and disproportionately large Scottish economy with its key markets, markets with which it was heavily dependent. It was, in Tony Dickson’s words: A regionally coherent economy, concentrated upon heavy industry and coarse textiles, it received its coherence from the role it fulfilled in the imperial economy. The regional bourgeoisie, in addition to enjoying its own regional identity, found employment over a remarkable range of imperial functions well out of proportion to its numerical size.139 Some illustrations make the point: 71 percent of locomotive production went to the Empire; Scotland provided all the sugar crushing

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and refinery material for the Empire. The Barclay Curle shipbuilding company claimed that a new ship for the British India line was always on its stocks while other Scottish shipbuilders could have made similar claims.140 Shipbuilding had left behind the slump of 1906– 08 and was experiencing something of a boom in the immediate prewar period. The Clyde yards set new records: in 1913 they produced 757,000 tons and 1,111,000 horsepower of marine engines, representing 33.4 percent and 49 percent of the UK total. In the same year Germany produced 646,000 tons and 776,000 horsepower. Indeed, at the height of the naval race, naval orders accounted for only around 10 percent of total production.141 Industrial Scotland was a beneficiary within the Empire, but at the same time its industries were dangerously dependent on it. Canada’s relationship within the Empire was somewhat different. Something of a “core”/ “periphery” relationship marked relations between Imperial Britain and the Dominion of Canada. Britain sought to maintain Canada as a primary producer economy, with a particular emphasis on the production of wheat, and as a market for its manufactured goods, such as produced by the export-driven Scottish economy.142 Canadian wheat exports to Britain between 1900 and 1910 quadrupled, and they did so again between 1910 and 1930.143 What this hides is that these exports were themselves being used to pay off external borrowing, which was itself fuelling the industrialization of Central and Eastern Canada, including Quebec. Ironically, British capital was crucial: 70 percent of the $2,500 million of capital imported into Canada between 1900 and 1914 originated from Britain. Much of this capital was directed at the building of infrastructure, and in particular railway construction: in the 1911–15 period 10,000 miles of railway line was opened. It was British finance that ensured Canada’s east-west integration, crucial to its survival as a political entity.144 Yet Britain had to be wary of respecting United States hegemony in the Americas,145 since American neutrality was a key part of British calculations in the event of war with Germany.146 It was during this period, and especially after 1900, that investment from the United States began to flow into Canada.147 Canada had first set out on its own industrial development with the National Policy of 1879. A tariff was imposed on British exports, which allowed Canadian manufacturing to increase more than sixfold from 1870 to 1915. US firms also began to appear: in order to

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get around the tariff, US firms set up branch plants. The result was that all the main sectors of industry were now established in Canada: iron and steel, engineering, leather, food and drink, transport, and clothing, as well as the range of goods and services typical of a modern economy. In addition, Canada produced most of its capital goods and possessed the means to process them.148 Similarly, in Quebec this was a period of rapid industrialization: between 1900 and 1910 the gross product value rose 74.9 percent, at an annual rate of 5.79 percent, while the added value climbed 81.6 percent, at an annual rate of 6.14 percent. This economic climate disproportionately benefited certain industries, among them pulp and paper, non-ferrous metals, iron and steel, and transportation equipment. Indeed, the pulp and paper industry was pivotal. In 1904 Quebec supplied only 4 percent of the United States newsprint market; however, this grew to 25 percent in 1916 and to 62 percent in 1932. Two other trends marked Quebec’s industrial growth: the move from low to high labourintensive industry and the concentration of manufacturing in the Montreal region. There was also an associated increase in urbanization: the urban population of Quebec grew rapidly, from around 39.9 percent in 1901 to 63 percent in 1931.149 Quite clearly, Scotland and Quebec did not possess equivalent levels of economic development: Scotland was an advanced exportorientated industrial economy, while Quebec’s economy was experiencing a period of rapid industrialization driven by the exploitation of natural resources. However, crucially it was the pattern, rather than the level, of development experienced that helps to explain the response of nationalists.150 This is underscored by analyses of the economic elites in Scotland and Quebec during this period provided by the Scottish sociologist David McCrone and the Québécois historian Paul-André Linteau.151 In Scotland, the landed gentry, bourgeoisie, and petty bourgeoisie comprised the key social classes. As the name suggests the landed gentry owned large tracts of the Scottish countryside and exercised a dominant influence in rural Scotland. However, its interests were not restricted to land; through marriage, it had acquired interests in finance and industry. It was also culturally distinct, Episcopalian and sometimes Catholic in religion, and it spoke with an English rather than a Scottish accent – the result of attendance at English public schools and universities. Its network was British and imperial. Lord Minto, the Scottish-born, but Eton- and Cambridge-educated,

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governor general of Canada, belonged to this class.152 The commercial and industrial bourgeoisie, in contrast, was culturally Scottish; its members were the products of Scottish schools and universities, Presbyterian in religion, and took pride in Scottish folklore and literature. Among its number were major industrialists such as Yarrow and Tennant, who dominated the Scottish economic scene but whose interests were imperial in scope. These were leaders in shipbuilding, heavy engineering, chemicals, iron, steel, and coal. In contrast, the petty bourgeoisie, the owners of small property (primarily flats and shops), was locally based, and they dominated the politics and economics of Scotland’s towns and cities.153 Linteau presents a comparable analysis, which distinguishes among three levels of Quebec bourgeoisie. The grande bourgeoisie controlled the most important financial institutions (banks, insurance companies), industries, and railway and shipping companies, such as the Bank of Montreal and Canadian Pacific Railway. These interests were imperial and pan-Canadian in scope. This grande bourgeoisie was overwhelmingly based in Montreal and was predominantly English and Scottish in origin. Its number included such luminaries as Donald Smith, Herbert Holt, Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, and a single French Canadian, Louis-Joseph Forget (whose nephew Rodolpe had similar success). The business, political, and philanthropic influence of the Scottish-born Smith, later Lord Strathcona, in some ways highlights a key contrast between the mobility available to Scots and French Canadians at this time. French Canadians were more numerous within the moyenne bourgeoisie, although here, too, there was a sizable Anglo-Scottish contingent, as well as some Irish-origin members. It differed from the grande bourgeoisie in the scale of its operations; for example, it was involved in regionally based banks such as the Banque Jacques-Cartier, presided over by Alphonse Desjardins (not the founder of the Caisses populaires). It was regionally based and located in Quebec’s main towns. In contrast, the petite bourgeoisie was dominant locally in small towns. Moreover, the economic isolation of many of Quebec’s regions ensured its dominance of the local economy. It was in the majority Francophone, but it also included immigrant groups.154 These overviews suggest that the imperial dimension was key to both the Scottish- and Quebec-based bourgeoisies. It reflects the fact that the Quebec economy, in particular, was dependent on external capital from London and, increasingly, New York. Moreover, it is

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notable that French Canadian participation within the Quebecbased economic elites was restricted, with few exceptions, to the moyenne and, especially, the petite bourgeoisie, and thereby excluded from participation in Britain’s industrial empire. In contrast, Scots played a prominent role in building industry at home and across the Empire. The names of James Lithgow of Port Glasgow and Donald Smith of Montreal testify to this. Clearly Scotland and Quebec experienced quite different patterns of development. However, there is little evidence to suggest that nationalism in Scotland and Quebec was simply a reflection of class conflict and class alliances or the result of tensions between classes in Scotland and Quebec and the British and Canadian states, as Juan Díez Medrano argues in the case of the Basque Country and Catalonia.155 It was the political factors detailed in the previous section that occasioned a nationalist response. Yet there were occasions when there was a coincidence of interests between liberal nationalists and economic elites. In Scotland, the Young Scots received financial support from exportorientated business for their campaign opposed to tariff reform and in support of free trade. Many of those who were Liberal Unionist supporters returned to the Liberal Party fold at this time. The Young Scots campaign was fought on decidedly Liberal grounds: there was a notable absence of nationalist content. In Quebec, the Nationalistes were the financial beneficiaries of Montreal-based big business opposition to Canada’s proposed Reciprocity agreement with the United States during the 1911 Federal Election. The agreement sought mutual tariff reductions between the United States and Canada on a list of primary products. Quebec’s grande bourgeoisie was keen to remain in the imperial orbit and was fearful that this would be jeopardized in the event of a reciprocity agreement with the United States. Therefore, it viewed the Nationalistes as a convenient means of defeating the government of Wilfrid Laurier. Yet the Nationalistes’ focus remained the Naval Bill, and not the Reciprocity agreement. Nevertheless, an analysis of the particular patterns of development in Scotland and Quebec does contribute to an understanding of the character of these nationalisms in this way: the Nationalistes’ attitudes toward industrialization reflected that the economic development of Quebec was being carried out by non-French-speaking, British-origin, and increasingly US interests. In contrast, the Young Scots largely did not question the ownership of industry, since Scottish success both at home and abroad was often linked to

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industrialism; rather their focus was solely on the social consequences of industrialization. The apparent strength of Scottish industry belied its actual weakness. It was dangerously specialized, concentrated on heavy industry, particularly iron and steel, engineering, shipbuilding, and locomotive building. These were industries vulnerable to technological innovation, requiring continual reinvestment, and dependent on highly cyclical markets. They were also heavily dependent on imperial markets.156 Scottish industry failed to take advantage of the technical, financial, and managerial reorganization favoured by its German and American competitors; companies remained family concerns under the control of autocratic individuals,157 unable to respond to a changing marketplace. The warning signs were there: shipbuilding had experienced a 50 percent slump in the tonnage produced between 1906 and 1908, dividends in the North British Locomotive Company were cut in 1910 and 1911 as a result of American competition, and by 1913 German steel undercut the cost of Scottish production.158 This precarious economic position took its toll on the working and living conditions of Scotland’s industrial labour force. Despite the fact that unemployment in this period was low (only 1.8 percent of those insured were unemployed in 1913, compared to 8.7 percent in London),159 Scotland was experiencing a social crisis: “mass poverty was a marked feature of Scotland’s age of empire.”160 Wages remained consistently lower than those in England.161 The bulk of employment in Scotland remained semi-skilled and unskilled, subject to periods of short-term unemployment.162 And housing, particularly in the tenement slums of Glasgow, was much worse than that found in England: in 1871, 41 percent of all families lived in single ends (one-roomed homes) and 37 percent lived in two rooms. Things were little better fifty years later: in 1931, 75 percent of the population lived at two or more people to a room (the equivalent figure in England and Wales was 6.9 percent).163 In addition, rural depopulation and emigration to Canada, the USA, and Australasia were key concerns: two million people left Scotland between 1815 and 1939, one and a half times the per capita movement for England and Wales. Scotland, therefore, was almost alone in being marked by both industrialization and large-scale emigration: most emigration was associated with poor rural societies.164 The Young Scots promoted a brand of social liberalism to address these questions, and they emphasized the need for state intervention.

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The writings of L.T. Hobhouse were influential; social inequalities were hindering the development of productive citizens: “Our educational system must be reorganized, so that all may have equal opportunity to develop their faculties and no talent be allowed to run to waste. The housing of the people must be improved, so that under proper conditions they may become good and capable citizens.”165 However, these “new liberal” ideas took on a uniquely Scottish flavour: the inadequate governance of Scottish affairs was blamed for much delayed, and much needed, social legislation. In the words of the Young Scots’ Society’s 1911 manifesto: “The great solitudes of the north, once the home of a grand and heroic race, the overcrowded city slums, the emigrant ships, are terrible witness to the neglect and mismanagement of Scottish business.”166 These social concerns were well established in the Young Scots’ Society. J.M. Hogge was a social investigator who had undertaken work in the slums of Edinburgh.167 He reported that during this period the exodus from Scotland exceeded that from Ireland: “In 1913 the excess of births over deaths in Scotland was 47,476. The excess of emigrants over immigrants was 46,167. A very simple sum in arithmetic throws into prominence the astounding fact that the net increase in Scotland’s population in 1913 was only 1,309.” It was clear what was to blame: “the land of Scotland is closed to the peasantry of Scotland.” Land was instead being set aside for deer forests and sporting lands.168 Therefore, the absence of adequate land legislation to meet the needs of small holders was considered the main culprit behind the decline of Scotland’s rural population. On housing: “One ninth of our people live in one-roomed houses; one-eight in single apartment houses. More than 45 percent, equal to two million souls, live two to one room; in Glasgow 400,000 are in this predicament; in Dundee one-half the entire populace. One tenth of our fellow Scotsmen live more than four to one room.”169 Individual YSS branches pursued these issues. For example, the Young Scots’ Glasgow Eastern Branch organized a public conference on the “Housing Problem” on 16 December 1913, which was attended by John Wheatley, Glasgow councillor and future Labour minister of Housing, together with several baillies (magistrates) and councillors from Glasgow Burgh Council. These growing social problems together with the failure of the Westminster Parliament to enact suitable legislation suggested that a Scottish Parliament would be best placed to address these issues. Robert Hay, the Young Scots’ Society president, claimed that there

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was no better reason for supporting Scottish Home Rule than the emigration figures: “those people were not leaving Scotland because of any adventurous spirit, nor because they were tired of Scotland, but because they were not having an opportunity of developing themselves as they wished to.”170 For Roland Muirhead, it was the need to improve the social and economic welfare of Scotland that lay behind his desire for Home Rule.171 In Quebec, the Nationalistes were particularly influenced by the writings of one of the first French Canadian economists, Errol Bouchette, and in particular his L’indépendance économique du Canada français. Both Armand Lavergne and Jules Fournier gave it high praise. With the slogan “Emparons-nous de l’industrie,” Bouchette argued that in order to ensure their survival French Canadians had to embrace industrialism. Bouchette’s (and the Nationalistes’) desire to end the economic inferiority of French Canadians must be set against a background of increasing concentration of wealth and the monopolization of private industry by US interests. Hydroelectricity was a particular concern. Bouchette identified the exploitation of natural resources as the key to the future success of French Canada. However, French Canadians were handicapped by two major weaknesses: a deficient educational system and a lack of capital.172 These factors ensured that French Canadians were reduced to forming a “cultural division of labour” for Anglophone industry.173 Therefore, what was required was a schooling system dedicated to imparting practical commercial and technological knowledge. Fournier was full of praise for the model of state-led development pursued by Prussia, with its emphasis on technological education, and he argued for a similar approach in Quebec.174 To provide access to capital Bouchette identified both cooperatives and the state as key. The latter was the more controversial. Bouchette wrote: “In a country such as ours, where there is much to do, and rapidly, if we wish to have an absolute guarantee of our survival as a distinct political entity in America, reform cannot be carried out without an impulse, direct or indirect, by the collective will of the citizens, that is by the state.”175 To his detractors the prominence given to the role of the state marked his proposals as being too close to socialism. Moreover, many within the Church were suspicious of his proposals for education. Less controversial was Bouchette’s promotion of cooperatives. This was the era in which the Caisses populaires began to take root in Quebec. The

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Caisses sought to provide both rural and urban workers with access to credit. This was the aim of Alphonse Desjardins, who established the first Caisse in 1900 in Lévis. Its origins were initially humble but, with the support of the Catholic Church, the Caisses populaires slowly began to spread, with the parish serving as the base for the new institution.176 In the pages of Le Devoir, Henri Bourassa and Omer Héroux were prominent supporters of Desjardins’s cooperative movement.177 The Nationalistes were united by their desire to see French Canadians achieve greater control over their economic destiny, particularly through the exploitation of natural resources, although for different reasons. For Henri Bourassa, this would enable French Canadians to mitigate the materialism associated with “AngloSaxon” development,178 while for Olivar Asselin and Jules Fournier it would allow French Canadians to compete more effectively and on something like their own terms. To this end, both Asselin and Fournier followed Bouchette in arguing for the systematic intervention of the Quebec state, in contrast to the more piecemeal approach advocated by Bourassa.179 Like the Young Scots, the Nationalistes were also concerned with social welfare. Once again, differences are evident among the Nationalistes. Bourassa was generally less concerned with French Canadians’ social welfare than with their moral welfare.180 In contrast, Asselin and Fournier were committed to social welfare reform. As president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste of Montreal, Asselin campaigned against the high infant mortality rates found in that city, something that he listed as an achievement of his presidency.181 Before the First World War nearly one child in three died before their first birthday.182 As solutions he suggested improvements to housing, parks, and playgrounds, supervision of the milk supply, and a better municipal service of hygiene and health.183 On this issue, Bourassa and Asselin were as one.184 Therefore, the Nationalistes argued that the state should play a role in aiding French Canadians not only take control over natural resources and improve the education system but also extend the provision of social welfare. Joseph Levitt sums up their position thus: On the one hand, they suggested the nationalization of certain key utilities and a sharp watch by government over big business activity to protect the interests of the public; on the other hand,

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the state was to regulate health conditions in factories, limit the hours of work, take some responsibility for cleaning up the slums and provide insurance against accidents, sickness and old age.185 Thus, the writings of liberal nationalists in Scotland and Quebec share some common traits, most notably their emphasis on the need for state intervention. However, they also reflect contrasting patterns of development rather than merely different levels of development. This explains much of the difference in emphasis between the two nationalisms vis-à-vis industrialism. In Scotland, the Young Scots emphasis was on redressing the social ills that faced urban and rural Scotland. In Quebec, the Nationalistes sought to implement measures that would allow French Canadians to exercise greater control over the economic development of Quebec, in addition to social reforms to address Quebec’s growing industrial population. Interestingly, both sets of nationalists looked to sub-state institutions to remedy these problems: it was the Province of Quebec that should intervene to ensure that the Quebec economy was developed in the best interests of French Canadians and not developers, and it was a Scottish parliament that would be best placed to tackle the social ills facing Scotland.

conclusion: a liberal empire? This chapter has sought to situate the emergence of liberal nationalists in Scotland and Quebec within the British Empire. Of particular note has been the language in which the nationalists responded to predatory policies as Britain felt itself increasingly squeezed economically and militarily. In Scotland the language adopted in response to the domestic component of these policies was liberal, while in Quebec the effect of these policies on Canada brought forth a more nationalist response. This gives support to the contention that these were liberal nationalists, with the emphasis on Liberal in Scotland and on Nationalist in Quebec. A related topic was the contrasting patterns of industrial development experienced in Scotland and Quebec, which had occurred under the auspices of the Empire. These patterns were influential, explaining the contrasting goals of liberal nationalists in Scotland and Quebec: respectively, to alleviate the social costs of industrialism and to have a greater say in industrial development. Yet industrialism on its own did not prove

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decisive in producing a nationalist response. The predatory political policies pursued by British governments did that. Neither the Young Scots nor the Nationalistes favoured the withdrawal of Scotland or Canada from the British Empire. Such a policy would have been unthinkable to the Young Scots; Home Rule was viewed as “an imperial necessity,” something that would strengthen rather than diminish the Empire: In addition to dealing with the business of four distinct peoples [Scottish, English, Irish, and Welsh], the Imperial Parliament has the supervision of the affairs of a great and complex Empire, with the inevitable result that its work is imperfectly done or, in large part, entirely neglected. The Imperial Parliament cannot cope with its work, and as the burden of Empire increases rather than diminishes, Devolution has become a vital Imperial necessity.186 In contrast, the Nationalistes had a less emotional and more instrumental attachment to the British Empire. Henri Bourassa believed that Canada would only be ready for independence once internal and external peace had been secured. In the meantime he favoured an increasingly autonomous Canada within the British Empire. The Empire provided a buttress against the United States: “I hold that placed as we are in the immediate and exclusive neighbourhood of the United States, this ought to be a hint to us that it were safer to postpone the day of our emancipation.”187 At the same time, however, the United States was offered as a bargaining chip. If it was shown that Canada could prosper within the United States, then this should be seriously considered: “A young nation has nothing to lose and everything to gain by having an alternative within its grasp. Under British rule, it is always optional with us to change our allegiance and to raise the star-spangled banner …”188 Bourassa suggested that annexation to the United States would be the inevitable result of an escalation of tensions between the British and French origin populations, brought about by the failure to achieve a purely Canadian policy in relation to Canada’s relations with the Empire.189 What both sets of nationalists shared in common was a liberal conception of the British Empire: an empire governed by both decentralization and self-government. Young Scots celebrated the fact that “The self-governing British Empire has been built by Liberal

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statesman carrying out the Liberal principle of freedom.”190 It was this principle that had worked so successfully in Canada and Australia and that had been granted to the Boers of South Africa: The Tories added the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies to the Empire by conquest, and they tried to govern these colonies as conquered states. The Liberals, under Sir Henry CampbellBannerman, recognized that the presence of a conquered race in the Empire was a source of weakness, and so they gave full selfgovernment to the Boers. South Africa today is a united and contented country joined to the Empire by bonds of affection forged by the Liberals. The curse bequeathed by the Tories has been turned into a blessing by the Liberals.191 Whatever the truth of this statement, it accurately reflected the Young Scots’ view of the Empire. They were keen to demonstrate that an empire governed by “Home Rule” – their demand – was not only reasonable but also consistent with imperial practice. It was this measure that was demanded by Ireland, and it would prove equally successful if applied to Scotland and Wales: “Home Rule is the most powerful bond of union for the different members of the Empire … A Vote for Liberalism is a Vote for Home Rule and the Greatness of the Empire.”192 The Nationalistes shared a liberal conception of the Empire. Henri Bourassa invoked Richard Cobden in support of his own stance: “The colonies were given to understand that they were to be selfreliant and self-supporting, and that whensoever they thought fit to sever their connection with the motherland, no obstacle would be put in the way.”193 Moreover, Bourassa was thoroughly familiar with British politics and a great admirer of both William Pitt the Younger and William Gladstone: “From his [Gladstone’s] politics every nation may learn useful lessons. Gladstone belongs to humanity. Pitt is thoroughly English: his methods are suitable to England alone, but they suit her to perfection.”194 Olivar Asselin confirmed Bourassa’s affection for British political history: “I do not know of a sounder exponent of British parliamentary doctrine than Bourassa. And I would like to know of one Canadian parliamentarian better informed on the various aspects of British life and history.”195 What this points to is that the British Empire established a transnational network of shared norms and ideas. British political

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institutions and parties were replicated throughout the Empire: Canada’s House of Commons and the competition between Liberal and Conservative parties at both the federal and provincial levels testify to this. But, perhaps more interestingly, British political ideas found an audience throughout the Empire. Ideas of liberty and equality were genuinely debated in the running of the Empire and not simply “the convenient ruse and gloss of empire.”196 In other words, the issue here is not whether the actions of the Empire were liberal197 but rather the degree to which the Empire provided an arena in which liberal ideas were genuinely diffuse. The evidence suggests this was the case. The very political leaders and ideas that inspired a society of young men meeting in Edinburgh in 1900 were among those that were so influential to a young French Canadian Liberal MP in Ottawa who stood in opposition to the South African War the previous year. During his visit to the British Isles (a trip that included England, Ireland, and Scotland, which he had discovered through the writings of Walter Scott) in 1901 Henri Bourassa met with many leading political figures, including John Morley, Lord Haldane, and Leonard Courtney, with whom he continued to correspond.198 Courtney was a guest speaker at a public meeting organized by the Young Scots the following year.199 This is not to suggest that the currents and ideas within the Empire were the only ones that exerted an influence on the Nationalistes. This was clearly not the case; the wider Catholic world, France, and the United States were influential. Yet Québécois historians have largely overlooked the role played by the British Empire: only five pages in Paul-André Linteau et al.’s otherwise excellent Histoire du Québec contemporain are devoted to the British Empire. Liberal nationalists in Scotland and Quebec held a strong attachment to the liberalism of the Empire. However, the way in which they regarded the Empire itself differed markedly. The very success of Scots within the Empire affirmed rather than undermined the distinctiveness of Scottish institutions: “the Empire, far from being a source of Scots servitude, was actually a means whereby Scotland asserted her distinctiveness in relation to England. To withstand the power of her larger neighbour, Scotland required a larger entity to which she could cleave.”200 The British Empire did not provide the same role for French Canadians. The Nationalistes had little emotional attachment to the British Empire; rather, the larger entity through which they hoped to preserve the distinctiveness of Quebec

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was Canada.201 An increasingly autonomous Canada was thought to be the best safeguard for the preservation of French Canada. Nevertheless, their contrasting positions within the British Empire were key to explaining their very different responses. Münkler argues that all empires are identified by an asymmetry in the way in which populations are integrated: “there is almost always a scale of integration descending from centre to periphery, which usually corresponds to decreasing rights and an increasing limited capacity to determine the politics of the centre.”202 Such a situation was in place here. Scots felt themselves to be at the centre of the Empire; they felt able to engage in debates on the proper course of imperial policy. This was not the case for French Canadians, who felt their peripheral status doubly: as Canadians and as French Canadians. This was a theme in Bourassa’s writings, where he distinguished between the “maîtres et valets de l’Empire.”203 The degree to which the distinct cultures and institutions of Scotland and Quebec were respected leads to a discussion of the political systems of Britain and Canada and the Young Scots and Nationalistes’ responses. This is the subject of the next two chapters.

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5 Scotland and the Search for Federation

The way in which political power is institutionalized plays a key role in shaping nationalist demands. This chapter and the next explore this proposition in the context of Scotland and Quebec. The aim is to better understand the political goals pursued by the Young Scots and the Nationalistes by locating them within their particular political systems. In appearance Scotland and Quebec were governed through very different mechanisms: a unitary state in Britain and a federation in Canada. Yet while both enjoyed a considerable amount of autonomy, during this period there was a growing unease that this autonomy was being undermined. The chapter first examines threats to the governance of “federal Britain” in order to better understand the Young Scots’ promotion of Home Rule and the growing militancy with which they pursued their Home Rule campaign.

federal britain Despite the relative success of de facto “informal federalism” in guaranteeing the autonomy of nineteenth-century Scotland, its institutions were inadequate to the demands of the new century. Local government, in particular, was unable to meet the new era’s growing social crisis: health, housing, and poverty were key issues. At the same time, the Westminster parliament was burdened with the legislative needs of the Empire. In response, the Young Scots sought a more formalized relationship with London through the establishment of a Home Rule Parliament; this was often framed within a demand for “Home Rule All Round,” a formal federation of the four component nations of the British Isles – Scotland, England, Wales,

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and Ireland. The merit of such a scheme was that it would provide a clear division of powers between the Imperial Parliament at Westminster, and the four national parliaments, each with the power to initiate domestic legislation. Federalism was something of a buzzword during this period. It was proposed as an all-purpose remedy to a variety of problems facing the British Empire. It was touted as means of governing the Empire more efficiently: Joseph Chamberlain’s aim of creating an imperial federation had been a key feature of the early part of the first decade of the twentieth century. Chamberlain was aware that Britain’s most successful competitors, the United States and Germany, were both federations. Moreover, the apparent success of the Canadian federation suggested a way of accommodating the Boers in South Africa and addressing the Irish question at home.1 The Canadian federation and the “self-governing Empire” more generally were offered as models for Scottish Home Rule within the United Kingdom: What we have got to do is bring the Home Country, the United Kingdom, into line with the other great self-governing portions of the Empire. The Canadian Dominion has one central Parliament for All the affairs that concern Canada as whole, and separate Provincial parliaments for the local affairs of Quebec, British Columbia, and other provinces … The United Kingdom alone lags behind the rest of the self-governing Empire. We must put our house in order by applying the same principle at home – one Parliament for the UK as a whole, and separate Parliaments for the purely local affairs of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.2 Within Britain the implementation of a scheme of federal Home Rule was thought to have the added advantage of making Irish Home Rule more palatable by including it in a broader scheme, to devolve powers to Scotland and Wales. Indeed, demands for “Federal Home Rule” or “Home Rule All Round” were often promoted as a way of addressing the debate on Irish Home Rule, “a recurring theme whenever Irish negotiations reached an impasse.”3 Patricia Jalland argues that between 1910 and 1914 federal Home Rule operated as both a “political panacea” and a “tactical diversion.”4 It appealed to those who thought it a way of improving constitutional

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efficiency, as well as those who wished to ensure that the demands of Scotland and Wales were not overlooked. But those who hoped wrapping Irish Home Rule in a theoretical federal scheme might indefinitely postpone it also invoked federalism. Clearly, the issue of Irish Home Rule provided Scottish nationalists with the opportunity to argue that Scotland should receive the same consideration as Ireland: the special attention focused on Ireland was resented by many Scottish and Welsh members of Parliament. Mid-nineteenth-century liberal theory gave federalism a ringing endorsement.5 John Stuart Mill, in particular, ascribed positive qualities to it. He praised federal systems for their pacifism and for their ability to harmonize trade (itself a mitigator against war): “it of course puts an end to war and diplomatic quarrels, and usually also to restrictions on commerce between the States composing the Union.”6 Federal systems were particularly well disposed to pacifism since “a federal government has not a sufficiently concentrated authority, to conduct with much efficiency any war but one of self-defence.”7 The history of state-formation in North America is markedly different from the canonical history of European state-formation. The relative peace of North America allowed for decentralized polities to emerge, first in the United States and then in Canada. In contrast, Europe’s multi-polarity resulted in competition among states, with the result that war was recurrent and states became centralized command structures: a means of mobilizing for war.8 Britain was different: its state sat lightly on society. Britain’s geographic position meant that it was dependent on its navy for defence, and therefore avoided a reliance on mass conscript armies and the need for a centralized bureaucracy. It employed “infrastructural power,” ruling through society, rather than “despotic power,” ruling society from above; as a result it maintained a relatively decentralized state.9 Above all, federalism was a way of managing difference when people are unable to live under the same internal government. Difference could take many forms; Mill mentions four: race, language, religion, and political institutions.10 The last applied to Scotland. Britain’s early modern state tolerated a good deal of institutional autonomy in the daily running of Scotland. John Stuart Mill suggested that there was something peculiarly British about the post-Union settlement between Scotland and England: “a people having that unbounded toleration which is characteristic of this country, for every description of anomaly, so long as

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those it concerns do not feel aggrieved by it, offered an exceptionally advantageous field for trying this difficult experiment.”11 Yet perhaps Britain acted merely as any composite monarchy would, agreeing to acknowledge rather than seek to reform the character of particular territories.12 Nevertheless, this practice allows Burgess to suggest the existence of a “British federal tradition” not only in terms of the practice of governance but also in the federal ideas that intermittently emerged.13 It is of note that the bicentenary of the Treaty of Union in 1907 passed without any serious Scottish celebration of the event. Young Scots never questioned Scotland’s union with England. They did, however, question the form that it took. They were persistent critics of the incorporating nature of the union: “considerations of dynasty, commerce, and mutual combination for defence made Union necessary, but to effect a Union it was not necessary to destroy the Scottish Parliament.”14 Instead, Young Scots supported the idea that it would have been possible to devise a federal union and they invoked the name of Fletcher of Saltoun, who had propounded this view during the debates on the Union. This would have “given all the advantages without inflicting any of the disadvantages of incorporation,” with the result that “had the Scottish people been left with the control of their own affairs the social problems with which we are now confronted would never have assumed their present threatening dimensions.”15 These views represented a clear belief that Scotland possessed inadequate political institutions to meet the task at hand; only a reconvened Scottish Parliament would have the capacity to meet these challenges. The passage of the Parliament Bill, curbing the veto powers of the House of Lords, was insufficient to remedy the situation.16 The existing machinery of government in Scotland had been found wanting. Young Scots called into question the role of the secretary for Scotland. They questioned both the adequacy of the powers of the office and the very holders of the office themselves: “Since the office was established, Scottish Departments have grown in number considerably; but no attempt has been made to assist the secretary with the appointment of under-secretaries.”17 Moreover, the appointments made by Lord Pentland (1905–12) were called into question, consoled only by the fact that “Lord Pentland’s administration is better than would have been that of a Conservative secretary.”18 The next incumbent of the office, Thomas MacKinnon Wood (1912–16), failed

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to excite nationalists in the YSS: “MacKinnon Wood disappointed me, and his speech was the weakest of the evening.”19 The Scottish Office, too, was taken to task. An anonymous Young Scot wrote: it is the common experience not only of Scottish members [of parliament], but of those outside the walls of Parliament, that the Scottish Office is far too much of an alien organization, and time and again bitter complaints, not always given voice to because of fear of dire party consequences, are heard regarding the cavalier manner in which representatives of Scotland are treated.20 These grievances reflected that there was, in contemporary parlance, a “democratic deficit.” Governing institutions were outside popular control: the bureaucratic boards know that their actions can never be called in question or adequately discussed by Scottish Members of Parliament – the Imperial Parliament cannot afford the time for such parochial business. But all this matters to Scotland. It is an unhealthy state of affairs, making for inefficiency and financial waste even in the hands of efficient public servants, and is altogether at variance with democratic ideas and sentiment.21 A persistent grievance cited by Scottish MPs was the lack of available parliamentary time to discuss Scottish questions. Harry Anderson Watt (Glasgow College 1906–18) testified in 1911 that only five days, each for seven hours, had been devoted to Scottish business since he had entered the House of Commons. That meant one day per session, and a total of thirty-five hours in five years.22 It was only in 1912 that parliamentary time was specifically allocated to ask questions of the Scottish Office. Yet in 1911–14 only twenty three hours were spent on Scottish affairs: “This year the Land Court, the Board of Agriculture, and the Fishery Board have been reviewed very cursorily. All other departments of Scottish work have had no review at all. And yet we are a self-governed people.”23 The consequence was that these boards failed to adequately take account of the views of Scottish civil society: The inevitable result is that the numerous boards administering Scottish affairs are practically out with the control of Scottish

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opinion. The Convention of Burghs may petition, the School Boards may protest, the teachers may make suggestions, the fishermen may have ideas – the experience of Town Councils, School Boards, teachers, and fishermen goes for nothing.24 The result: legislation has been “imposed on her against her wishes and desires … Scotland comes as an afterthought. The proposed legislation is framed by an English minister with the assistance of English lawyers, and it is based on English experience, custom, and law.”25 The system of government was deemed to be both inefficient and costly. J.M. Hogge emphasized the cost of Scottish lobbying at Westminster, in terms of both money and time; to make the point: The curse of Westminster is its deputations. Leading officials of Scottish local bodies and leading business men of Scottish Corporations and Councils, find it imperative from time to time to give up a week of their City’s or their own time to attend in London to discuss business which ought to be settled in their own country.26 In 1912 the lord provost of Glasgow’s personal expenses on a Boundaries Bill amounted to £168, 10s. 6d., spending forty-three days in London on Glasgow parliamentary business. Other elected representatives, and city officials spent similar amounts of time and money while lobbying. These figures did not include the cost of proposing legislation, for example through the employment of lawyers. Therefore: “The business argument is one of the strongest that can be adduced for Home Rule, and the municipalities of Scotland should be in the van of the campaign which would secure that Scottish business would be transacted in Scotland by Scotsmen for Scotsmen.”27 It was perhaps a realization that local government was unable to adequately deal with the social problems facing Scotland that led to calls for the re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament. Several Young Scots had direct experience of Scottish local government: J.W. Gulland, James Leishman, and F.J. Robertson had served as Edinburgh city councillors and J.M. Hogge had served as a city councillor in York, England. Key support came from local government and its association, the Convention of Scottish Burghs. This is

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reflected in the support given to the International Scots Home Rule League (ISHRL) – twenty-eight provosts, including the lord provosts of Glasgow, Dundee, and Elgin, and four former provosts served as honorary vice-presidents28 – and the Scottish Home Rule Council (SHRC), which also received support from local government for its 1913 conference and demonstration: five hundred representatives of town councils, parish councils, school boards, and trades councils attended.29 The Westminster parliament had proved unresponsive to the wishes of the Scottish people. Scotland required self-government in order that much-needed social legislation could be enacted: “Scotland’s story since the Union is a story of legislative starvation.” The YSS cited the examples of land, temperance, house-letting, education, and Poor Law reform.30 There is irony here, since the very thing that the mid-nineteenth-century Scottish Rights Association celebrated – the absence of Westminster interference in the local affairs of Scotland – was being condemned by the Young Scots. The YSS represented a quite different ethos. This was no longer nationalism of a privileged urban bourgeoisie, but one that was more genuinely popular, promoted by an organization with branches throughout Scotland and increasingly in the industrial West.31 This was the age of mass democracy, an age, to paraphrase Nairn, in which the masses had received their invitation cards to history.32 However, the remedy that the YSS proposed was not London legislation but Scottish legislation; Westminster had proved deficient. So it was not until the immediate aftermath of the 1906 general election that the Young Scots’ Home Rule campaign got underway.

h o m e ru l e c a m pa i g n By the beginning of 1905 it became apparent that the Liberal Party was on course for a substantial victory at the next general election, as a result the YSS began to debate its future role.33 Until then the YSS had adopted a pragmatic approach, and campaigns had been launched as required. This had been the case with their campaigns in opposition to the Boer War and protectionism. The YSS needed a raison d’être, “something must be found to bind the Society more closely together than formerly.” In addition to maintaining its role as both an independent Liberal organization and as an educational association, correspondents suggested that it pursue both a national

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and a social mission: “[T]here can only be one policy after all and that is our own country – its advancement in everything that would continue its greatness among the nations of the world.” Federal Home Rule was suggested as an issue, which the Society should take “a strong and decided attitude upon.” However, others believed that “the Liberal gospel as taught by the Young Scots’ Society should be pre-eminently a social gospel,” and another contributor advocated the “dissemination of sound views on social questions.”34 It was along this dual track, a commitment to both Home Rule and social reform, that Young Scots’ policy progressed. Following the Liberal Party’s triumph in 1906, the Society turned its attention to the pursuit of Scottish Home Rule. Yet it is worth stressing: this was not the conversion of the Society to a newfound issue but a decision to give prominence to a founding policy commitment. Indeed, many had consistently been arguing for this course of action.35 The available YSS Annual Conference programs attest to the fact that the issue of Home Rule appeared on each conference agenda.36 Thus, debate within the YSS on Home Rule largely centred on the appropriate strategy to secure their desired goal. A second proviso needs to be stressed: the elevation of Home Rule did not mean that other policy initiatives were sidelined; rather, Home Rule was conceived as the sine qua non for other policies, particularly social policies. It was only once Home Rule had been achieved that Scotland’s social ills could be remedied. One of the YSS’s most fervent Home Rulers, Roland Muirhead, made precisely this point: “My desire has been so long, as you know, to see Scotland obtain a legislation chamber on a Federal basis and that during this Parliament. So that we may deal in earnest with the many social and economic problems that we already so much strive for legislative solutions.”37 In 1907 the YSS Annual Conference established a parliamentary committee, chaired by Councillor F.J. Robertson, with a dual mandate: to promote Home Rule and to campaign for the abolition of the House of Lords’ veto. The key motivation was frustration at the lack of progress made since the 1906 general election. The conference resolution emphasized the “overwhelming vote” that Scotland had given the Liberals in their landslide general election victory. Scotland “had expressed her desire for certain measures of long delayed reform by returning five-sixths of her entire representation in Parliament to support the Government.”38 It expressed frustration that these promised reforms had not been forthcoming; the

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congestion of Parliament and opposition from the House of Lords meant that “the time has arrived for the organization of a National movement in favour of Self-Government for Scotland and the supremacy of the House of Commons.”39 Robertson proved an effective campaign organizer, producing several leaflets, which employed explicitly nationalist rhetoric, such as “Scotland’s Case against the Lords” and “Scotland’s Fight for Freedom. The Two Vetoes.” The first claimed that in its composition, and voting record, the House of Lords had proved to be “antiScottish”; and it was not the “venerable institution” its supporters in England claimed, since it had only entered Scottish politics two centuries ago, following union with England! The second, designed for the January 1910 election, raised the stakes still further. Both the abolition of the Lords’ veto and a Scottish parliament were needed, in order “to abolish the two vetoes, the veto of the Lords and the veto of the English.” This leaflet alleged that Scotland had sent radical majorities to Westminster, without passage of corresponding radical legislation. As an indication of the growing importance of Home Rule to the YSS, its 1909 Perth Conference amended Article II of the Society’s constitution to make the attainment of Scottish Home Rule the central objective by adding the phrase: “to further the National Interests of Scotland, and to secure for Scotland the right of Self-Government.” Other campaigns continued to be waged. For example, and as the previous chapter indicated, the Society continued to campaign in support of land reform. During 1911 it campaigned against attempts to weaken the Small Landholder (Scotland) Bill.40 However, several Young Scots argued that Scottish Home Rule should take precedence over land reform. In the words of Walter Murray, the Young Scots were “enthusiastic supporters” of Lord Pentland’s Land Bill, yet they believed “that Scottish Home Rule is greater than land reform, because it will give Scotland the power to effect all internal reforms quickly and thoroughly, and they see that a firm and united demand will be successful in achieving Scottish Home Rule during the present Parliament.”41 The limited nature of the 1911 bill, and the failure of more radical bills, meant that by 1914 it became the Society’s policy that Home Rule be prioritized: It will be easier for the Government to carry to completion the policy of Scottish Home Rule … than to pass through the

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over-burdened and uninformed Imperial Parliament those large measures of land reform for which Scotland has long been ready; and when Scotland has gained her National Parliament for her national affairs, land reform and other social reforms will soon follow.42 This belief that meaningful social reform could only follow the implementation of Home Rule meant that the Home Rule campaign was intensified following the general elections of 1910 and was to take precedence over all other policy concerns.

h o m e ru l e c a m pa i g n i n t e n s i f i e d The 1910 general elections saw the Liberals maintain their dominance in Scotland, while in England their position was much diminished: the Scottish Liberals added a seat to their tally in the January election, in England Liberals lost over one hundred seats.43 The period between those elections and the outbreak of the First World War marked an intensification of the YSS campaign for Scottish Home Rule. Hanham incorrectly states that “by 1910 the Young Scots were not the force they had been before 1906.”44 In fact the reverse is true. The intensified Home Rule campaign coincides with the period in which the Young Scots were the most organizationally successful, in terms of the numbers of members recruited, branches formed, and publications produced. The YSS had played their part in the Liberals’ victories; once again they deployed their tactic of concentrating on Unionist-held seats and Liberal marginal seats. The Society enjoyed a period of increased popularity following the elections of 1910; its total number of branches increased to fifty-six (fifteen had been formed in 1910 alone, eleven in 1911). It enjoyed a particular success in the West of Scotland, which now had twenty-three of the Society’s branches, and its membership rose by 1,000 from the previous year to reach 3,500.45 The result in Scotland emboldened the YSS’s Home Rule position, much to the pleasure of those who had long advocated that Home Rule to be given a more prominent role: “For years it fell to me to press on the YSS notice of the necessity of concentrating on the Home Rule question. I am glad it is being taken up in earnest.”46 The 1911 YSS Annual Conference in Dunfermline was dedicated entirely to discussion of Home Rule, giving prominence to its “historical and imperial aspect,” its “legislative aspect,” and its “administrative aspect.”

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The Society’s publications reflected this intensification. Its leaflets carried forth the Home Rule message. In July 1911 the YSS published its Manifesto and Appeal to the Scottish People on Scottish Home Rule. The following year it produced a booklet, Sixty Points for Scots Home Rule, that gave sixty reasons why Home Rule was necessary, specifying the ways in which Home Rule would improve Scottish life; the booklet became important in YSS propaganda work. The Young Scots Handbook47 gave increasing prominence to Home Rule. Its fifth edition, which was a much more substantial publication than previous editions, devoted a substantial part to Home Rule. But the degree to which Home Rule should form a part of the Handbook sparked an interesting debate. Roland Muirhead argued that it should be devoted entirely to Home Rule, with emphasis on how it works in other countries: “when we have by our kind efforts obtained Federal Home Rule I would say now fill up the book with all kinds of social and economic themes and if you like make it a Scot Nat Yearbook.”48 Walter Murray, convener of the Publications Committee, disagreed: the Handbook should both reflect the work of the branches and guide them. The branches, while giving great prominence to Home Rule are dealing with many other questions; and that is directly the position of the Handbook. About a quarter of the whole book will treat the issue of Home Rule, surely an adequate preponderance … We must avoid narrowness and particularism, which are the weaknesses and dangers of nationalism. I am a thorough nationalist but never forget the wider issues in which we cannot cease to be interested. On foreign policy, for instance, hangs the fate of Home Rule … internal reform gets shelved because of the greater external urgency.49 This is an important quote because it underscores a key dilemma for Young Scots: a belief that liberalism should not be subordinate to nationalism; rather, that nationalism should be subsumed within liberalism. In addition, Home Rule became the most popular topic among YSS speakers. The YSS provided its branches and other societies with a list of potential speakers to fill up branch syllabi. The Young Scots Handbooks of 1910 and 1911 provided these lists, in which many speakers stated a preference for specific topics. In the 1910–11 session, free trade was the most popular topic, while Home Rule tied in second place with land reform; however, by the

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following year Home Rule became the most popular topic. Moreover, Home Rule had become the most popular topic just as the list of speakers had increased, from fifty-seven speakers in 1910 to eighty in 1911.50 Three factors help to explain the urgency with which the YSS now pursued the Home Rule campaign: the presumed imminence of an Irish Home Rule Bill, the growing unpopularity of the Liberals in England, and a general feeling that Scotland’s loyalty to the Liberal Party was being taken for granted. The YSS feared that the implementation of Home Rule for Ireland could adversely affect Scotland’s own chance of securing Home Rule: with the advent of Irish Home Rule there will in all probability be a reduction of some 50 percent of the Irish representatives at Westminster with the result that Scotland will lose the support of those 50 Irishmen in any progressive measure she may desire to pass. That is to say, if Scotland assists Ireland to obtain Home Rule without a definite promise from Government that a Home Rule Bill for Scotland will be introduced during this parliament, Scottish party Liberals are practically committing something very like political Hari-kari.51 In addition, following the general elections of 1910, there were wellfounded fears that the Liberals’ popularity in England was fading. In particular, the unpopularity of the Insurance Bill in England to establish a mechanism to fund welfare provision – notably old age pensions – would mean that Scottish Home Rule would be put on hold during the next parliament: in view of the mixed reception which the Insurance Bill is receiving in English constituencies, as shown at recent bye elections [sic], it is not beyond speculation whether the present Ministry will be returned with a sufficient majority to admit Scottish Home Rule being tackled in the next Parliament. It is therefore incumbent on us of the Young Scots’ Society to be urgent and insistent in our demand for attention.52 Moreover, now that England had abandoned the Liberals, the Liberal government was increasingly dependent on Scottish Liberal votes for measures that did not benefit Scotland:

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The people of Scotland had not receded from the majority placed behind the Liberal Government, but the English nonconformists had since 1906. It resolved itself into this – that the people of Scotland were to go on supplying the necessary driving force for Liberal Governments in the House of Commons to pass Liberal measures for everybody under the sun but themselves.53 This gave rise to a growing sense among YSS activists that Scotland was receiving very little in return for its political loyalty and that it was in danger of passing through another term of Liberal government “with little or nothing to be entered on the credit side of the legislative ledger. The trouble is we are actually too faithful. Our leaders use honeyed words when they come down to us, and we accept their pleasant flattery as genuine coin of the realm, and depart to our ordinary avocations.”54 The intensification of the Home Rule campaign, which these factors sparked, brought the Society into conflict with the Liberal Party. On the one hand, the YSS wanted to safeguard its independence55 – members resented being included as a Liberal Party organization in the Liberal Year Book for 1912.56 On the other hand, it wanted the Liberal Party, in particular Scottish Liberal MPs and the Scottish Liberal Association (SLA), to take a more proactive stance toward Home Rule. Young Scots were frustrated with the SLA’s approach to Home Rule: “What is required is a real genuine national movement, with the MPs, the national and local associations working harmoniously together for a definite national end. The only body capable of bringing this about is the National Association.”57 Three issues illustrate the growing tension between the YSS and the Liberal Party: YSS outrage at the Liberal Party’s selection of “carpetbagger” by-election candidates without ties to Scotland; the Young Scots’ strained relations with Scottish Liberal MPs; and a growing belief that YSS membership in the Liberal Party’s Scottish Home Rule Council was impeding the Society’s ability to effectively campaign for Home Rule. Liberal Parliamentary Candidates The YSS campaigned vigorously to ensure that candidates should be acquainted with Scottish concerns and should be committed to Home Rule. It adopted a resolution at its Glasgow Annual Conference

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in 1910 making Home Rule a test question for all parliamentary candidates in Scotland as to whether they would receive YSS support. At their 1911 Dunfermline Conference the Society went one step further and expressed its determination to enforce its demand for a Scottish Parliament within the present parliamentary session by running its own candidates.58 On two separate occasions the YSS was instrumental in blocking the candidature of individuals it deemed unsuitable to represent Scottish seats “because these gentlemen, by inevitable lack of sympathy with the Scottish national point of view, would have been a hindrance to the national movement.”59 At the Ross and Cromarty and Tradeston by-elections of June and July 1911, the proposed Liberal candidates, Scaramanga-Rali and Masterman, were either defeated in the selection process or later withdrew. The opposition by the YSS and its threat to run its own candidates appears to have been influential. However, with the nomination of W.G.C. Gladstone for the Kilmarnock Burghs by-election in September 1911 the YSS split. Despite his lineage – Gladstone’s grandson – and his impeccable radical credentials, many within the YSS were incensed that a candidate ignorant of Scottish issues should be considered over local candidates. One Scottish Liberal MP declared his support for the Young Scots opposition to this candidate and expressed an underlying fury that “alien” candidates should be foisted on Scotland. Harry Anderson Watt was concerned about their lack of “local patriotism” and their ignorance of “our institutions, they know nothing of our customs and laws and methods”; their only interest is in obtaing “safe seats” on the “exaggerated idea of the security to Radicals of all seats north of the Tweed.” He declared: Scotland can derive not the smallest gain or benefit from representation from Englishmen … No sooner do these men get back to London elected than they forget that they are Scottish members … they never think how this legislation will suit the Scottish people who have sent them there. These men of course only make the necessity for Home Rule for Scotland all the more marked. But how is that goal ever to be reached if we continue to import freely from all sorts and sizes of Englishmen … Let “the swim” in London realise that they can no longer forward us carpetbaggers (no matter what historic name they bear) who will be

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adopted and elected without a murmur or a groan, be they Greeks, Jews, or Englishmen … For my part I shall be quite prepared to do what I can to support a Scotsman, be he Liberal, or Labour, or Tory, in preference to one of these free imports. The loss of Kilmarnock Burghs to the Government is a small matter if it shows that the Scottish electors are not to be “put upon” by having aristocratic candidates foisted upon them.60 Alexander MacLaren, vice-president of the YSS Western Council (1911–12), offered a more tempered and less ethnic view of the matter: The Young Scots do not object to Englishmen merely because they hail from south of the Border. Our honorary president, Mr C.E. Price, MP, is a Welshman by birth; and we have good Scottish members, like Mr W.P. Beale for South Ayrshire, who are Englishmen. But what we do object to is that just as Scotland is awakening from her sleep of two centuries we should persist in sending up representatives to Westminster who, instead of giving a lead to national sentiment and ideals, know themselves practically nothing of the conditions and needs and requirements of the constituency they represent or of the country either.61 A similar view had been expressed during the Tradeston by-election, about the proposal by the local Liberal Association to nominate a Mr Masterman, an English candidate: He is an Englishman, entirely ignorant of Scottish affairs and wholly out of touch with the Scottish national point of view and with Scottish national aspirations. If he were an independent member, he might in a few years acquire a fairly competent knowledge of Scottish politics, but the need of Scotland just now is for men able at once to take their places as fully-equipped soldiers in the fighting line … no Liberal Association ought to adopt for a Scottish seat an Englishman who comes to Scotland to acquire his first real knowledge of the country and its institutions in the capacity of a Parliamentary candidate.62 These latter views express a liberal nationalism to the extent that what was being objected to was not the ethnicity of the candidates

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but rather their commitment to Scottish issues, in particular to Home Rule. These criteria applied equally to Scottish candidates.63 The Young Scots had no intention of supporting a Tory on the ethnic grounds advocated by Watt. Rather, they debated whether to stand an independent candidate themselves or give their backing to the Labour candidate. Ultimately they favoured the first strategy, but financial considerations played a role: “It is better to have our own man than support Labour, but we must support Labour if we cannot find the money.”64 Yet despite these threats from the Society’s leading activists, its National Council, under pressure from Liberal Party officials, backed down and gave its approval to Gladstone, following assurances that he would endorse Home Rule. The vote itself was narrow: it was carried by just twenty-one votes to sixteen, while a “strong minority” had favoured supporting the Labour candidate should his views prove acceptable.65 This loss of nerve infuriated many of the Society’s leading activists. In response MacLaren, one of the “strong minority,” considered whether it would be advisable to go down to Kilmarnock Burghs in support of the Labour candidate … I suggest writing to the press, that the dissentient Young Scots who practically form, with the exception of two or three members, the active spirits and workers of the Society, intend to appeal as individual Radicals to the independent and patriotic spirit of the Radical elector of Kilmarnock Burghs, to vote against Mr Gladstone, and give the caucus and the party whips a much needed lesson.66 Later, in an effort to allay “the present feeling of unrest among the more active members of our Society, which has been evinced by the approval of Mr W.G.C. Gladstone’s candidature,” MacLaren wrote to YSS President William Laughland, seeking a statement declaring that no official campaign would be waged by the Society in support of Gladstone.67 Laughland appears to have acquiesced, for MacLaren’s subsequent letter, published in the Glasgow Herald, confirmed that “officially, no Young Scots speakers are being sent out by the society to support Mr Gladstone. Local branches and individual members can of course act on their own responsibility.”68 Roland Muirhead considered the long-term implications: it had demonstrated that “the majority of Young Scots’ Society members are party Liberals first and Scot Nationalists second.” Nevertheless

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a large number of our members do not and cannot realise that they are party Liberals before all else [they should now consider whether they should] form a Scottish National Federation or make a systematic endeavour to alter the Young Scots Society Constitution so as to make it a Nationalist organization free from party leanings. The first seems to me the best. It is absolutely necessary to have a single organization for Home Rule.69 MacLaren appears to have supported the second option: he invited sympathetic Young Scots to a preliminary meeting, prior to the National Council meeting of 30 September, “to see what we can do to further the interest of Scottish Nationalism.”70 Muirhead used his position as a key YSS financial benefactor to underscore his view that the YSS should maintain an independent course: “if I could be assured that the YSS would keep itself entirely independent of all political parties I would be willing to find one hundred and fifty pounds for the current Home Rule campaign.”71 He appears to have found support in YSS Secretary Thomas Lochhead (1912–14), who thanked Muirhead “for the very generous way in which you have come to the rescue of the Society from the threatened swamping of our independence by officialdom.”72 Lochhead was concerned that the YSS would become financially dependent on the Liberal Party: “It is difficult to see how we can take money even ‘unconditionally’ from the Party and retain freedom of action should it be thought advisable actively to oppose them at any time.”73 Following the Kilmarnock Burghs debacle, the National Council sought to gauge the views of its branches toward future by-election policy. It sent out a resolution that “in view of the sharp divisions of opinion in the National Council on bye-election policy, immediate steps be taken to ascertain the view of the Branches of the Society,” and it asked branches to convene a “Special General Meeting” by the end of November 1911 to discuss the following three questions: 1 Are you of opinion that it is desirable where at all possible, that candidates for Scottish constituencies should be Scotsmen, or at least, men fully conversant with Scottish affairs and in sympathy with the Scottish National Point of view? 2 Are you in favour of candidates at future bye-elections [sic] in Scottish constituencies being pledged to demand Scottish Home Rule this Parliament?

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3 Are you in favour of it being left to the decision of the National Council on the special circumstances of each case, as to what course should be adopted by the Society in any bye-election?74 Branches were to report their replies, and a specially convened National Council would take a decision in December. The exercise resulted in “an overwhelming majority in favour of the policy carried out so successfully at Tradeston and Ross-shire … that candidates who seek to represent Scottish seats in Parliament should be thoroughly well acquainted with the life and conditions of the country they desire to represent.”75 In part, what lay behind this campaign was Young Scots’ frustration that Scottish Liberal MPs had failed to press for Home Rule effectively at Westminster. Scottish Liberal mp s At Westminster the question of Scottish Home Rule grew in prominence among Scots Liberal MPs. There is irony here since Scots were attaining greater prominence in both the Liberal Party and the Liberal governments of the era. Despite its dominance in the nineteenth century, it was only toward the century’s close that a stream of Scots entered the leading ranks of the party, notably Campbell Bannerman, Bryce, and Anglo-Scots Asquith and Trevelyn. In 1906, Haldane, Sinclair, R.T. Reid, and Lord Elgin were all brought into the government. Indeed, between 1880 and 1906, Scotland could claim three prime ministers: Rosebery, Balfour, and Campbell Bannerman, and many claimed a fourth, Gladstone.76 More generally, the Scottish Liberal caucus grew in importance during this period. The general election of 1900 had been disastrous for the Liberal Party: losing its overall majority of seats, being reduced to just thirty-four seats. However, by 1906 Liberals were once again in the ascendancy, securing fifty-eight of Scotland’s seventy-two MPs, and achieving its largest victory since 1885. In the January and December 1910 general elections the Liberals maintained their dominance. However, what had changed was Liberal fortunes in England. The parliamentary Liberal Party was now disproportionately dependent on Scottish votes in the House of Commons. Yet Scottish Liberals failed to translate this newfound influence into a concerted national campaign. Several factors explain this. A clear obstacle was the lack of cohesion that marked the Scottish

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Liberal caucus. Scottish Liberal MPs did not present themselves as a united body in the way that their Irish and Labour colleagues did. The Young Scot J.M. Hogge identified this lack of cohesion when he entered the Commons in 1912 as MP for Edinburgh East (1912–24): He was impressed by the want of cohesion shown by the Scottish Liberal members. One saw the Irish group and the Labour group each acting together, but the Scots were distributed in various places over the Government benches … The average Scottish member tends to support the Government in a general way and not to define the claims and demands of Scotland.77 One reason for this lack of cohesion was Scottish members’ success in securing government positions. A contributor to The Scottish Nation bemoaned that participation in the government was hampering the cause of Home Rule among Scottish Liberal MPs: too many Scotsmen are either officially and unofficially connected with the Government. Messrs. Wood, Munro, Gulland, Millar, Whyte, Barron, Collins, Whitehouse, Lyrall, White, Macpherson, and Captain Murray, a dozen altogether, are ministers, law officers, or beasts of burden to ministers on the front bench. This is an enormous weakness to the cause of Scottish Home Rule. Scottish Liberals should stand aloof from any share in governing Scotland except in accordance with Scottish ideas.78 A related reason was the Liberal Party’s failure to attract Scottish resident candidates to its ranks. Alexander Scott, MP for Glasgow Bridgeton (1910–22), made this initial assessment of his colleagues: There is at present no leader among the Scottish Members on National Affairs. But there are all the makings of a good party. There is, however, a strong alien element. Asquith, Churchill, Harcourt, Ponsonby, Allan, Harmsworth. Dalziel, Munro Ferguson, Pirie, Cowan are the men leading most strongly in the National Direction.79 Scottish Liberal MPs resented the practice of importing English candidates to contest Scottish constituencies. Scott, who had himself been London-based and had served as a Lewisham town councillor

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before becoming an MP, noted that several members belied the fact that they were members for Scottish constituencies: “Ponsonby, Harcourt, Gladstone, Barran, A.A. Allen are really English members.”80 Indeed, Harcourt had sought the nomination for the English constituency of Hastings only weeks before being selected for Montrose in 1908.81 The involvement of Englishmen and Anglo-Scots within the Scottish Liberal caucus was significant: “at no time before or since have Scottish MPs been less locally-based.”82 Michael Dyer notes that by 1910 “[T]hirteen of its Liberal MPs were English, twenty-two had been educated at English schools, fourteen had been to English universities, thirty-two were economically based south of the border, eight had previously sat for English constituencies, and a further five had fought English seats before coming to Scotland.”83 He supplies two main reasons to explain this situation: the first mechanical, the second cultural. In the first place the Liberal’s traditional source of candidates, the Whig landed elite, had deserted the party. These largely English-educated landowners had been an integrated part of the British ruling class. With their loss the party found itself increasingly dependent on middle-class Scottish-educated Presbyterians. However, these merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, and other professionals were largely unwilling to leave their Scottish-based business interests. Moreover, they were part of a local culture, which “discounted aspirations to national [British] political leadership”; their preoccupations were religious rather than political. While this was perhaps overstated, it is clear that Englishmen and Anglo-Scots provided a pool of talent that could be drawn on in “the absence of convenient alternatives.”84 William Webster, secretary of the Glasgow Scottish Liberal Association, appeared to be aware of the issue, declaring that: “at the last general election few can realise the extraordinary efforts that were put forward to get a hold of good local candidates.”85 However, J.M. Hogge’s treatment at the hands of the Glasgow Tradeston byelection selection committee in 1911 questions how far-reaching these efforts were. Hogge had been summoned before the committee, kept waiting for three hours, and then prevented from addressing the meeting. Moreover, his candidacy had been rejected in favour of Masterman, an English candidate.86 Masterman later stood aside, allowing James Dundas White, a Scot and former Liberal MP (Dunbartonshire, 1906–10), to successfully contest

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the by-election, while Hogge, who had narrowly lost in Glasgow Camlachie in the December 1910 general election, won the Edinburgh East by-election in 1912, and he remained in Parliament until 1924. There were no significant numbers of Young Scot MPs.87 Indeed, only two can reasonably be regarded as products of the YSS: J.W. Gulland (Dumfries Burghs, 1906–18) and J.M. Hogge. Both had served as president of the Society and were elected to the House of Commons in 1906 and 1912, respectively. Gulland’s Liberal Party career had been established before joining the Society, allowing Hogge, with some justification, to declare, “he was the first product of the Young Scots in the Imperial Parliament.”88 Nevertheless, several MPs did maintain a close relationship with the YSS. There certainly were stirrings of national feeling among the Scottish members in favour of Scottish Home Rule. Alexander MacCallum Scott welcomed “the growth of a strong national feeling among Scottish Liberal members. By acting together they have already secured some of the more urgent and long delayed measures of reform demanded by the people of Scotland.”89 During this period five Scottish Home Rule Bills (including one on Federal Home Rule introduced by MacCallum Scott) came before the House of Commons; four of the five were introduced in the period following the 1910 general elections, together with a motion on Scottish Home Rule. All were passed by a majority of Scottish members. Several Scottish Liberal MPs genuinely adhered to federalist principles and linked Scottish Home Rule to a wider scheme of federal Home Rule. They included many of the MPs associated with the YSS: D.V. Pirie, W.H. Cowan, Arthur Ponsonby, Alexander MacCallum Scott, Ronald Munro Ferguson, J. Cathcart Wason, and J.A. Murray MacDonald.90 MacCallum Scott is representative of this group: “We have got to face the Federal idea. It is the only safe plan for granting Home Rule to Ireland. If the Liberals of England are in earnest about Irish home rule they must face the Federal idea, and the longer they delay the greater their difficulties.”91 Indeed their support for Irish Home Rule was regarded as only the first step toward a wider measure of federal Home Rule: “Immediately the [Irish Home Rule] Bill was passed my tactics should be to subordinate everything else to Scottish Home Rule. Lose no opportunity of making things difficult for the government until they proceed with Home Rule for Scotland. Obstruct, agitate and vote against wherever possible to go one better.”92 Therefore Scott sought to link Scottish Home Rule to wider

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constitutional reform, specifically to Irish Home Rule through the demand for Federal Home Rule. He had introduced a Federal Home Rule Bill to this effect on 3 July 1912 and sought the formation of a “Home Rule All Round” organization. Others felt the link between Scottish Home Rule and federal Home Rule a distraction, however. J.M. Hogge warned of the danger of linking the fortunes of Scottish Home Rule to a utopian federal scheme.93 The Scottish Liberal MP Arthur Ponsonby, too, noted that this link unnecessarily set back Scotland’s claim to Home Rule, since in Scotland the prospect for devolution was relatively unproblematic: “She has her own laws, her own customs, her own institutions, and even her own parliamentary traditions, and the establishment of a Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh would be a comparatively easy matter and would encounter very little risk of serious opposition.”94 In contrast, Ireland was seriously divided along ethnic, religious, and financial lines, England was apathetic, and Wales appeared to be content by the recent passage of the Church Bill, which had ended the monopoly of the Church of England in Wales, a key demand of Welsh nonconformists.95 In a rather bizarre footnote to the brewing “Ulster crisis” following the mobilization of Protestant Ulster to the threat of Irish Home Rule, Scottish Home Rule was itself held out as a possible solution. While supporting separate treatment for the Protestant counties of Ulster within a wider federal scheme, several Scottish Liberal MPs suggested that Ulster counties could have the option of joining a Scottish Parliament.96 Roland Muirhead made his views quite clear to a leading proponent, the Scottish Liberal MP D.V. Pirie: “This, in my judgement, is opposed to all sense of Nationalism, and to receive Irish members into our Scottish Parliament, would absolutely destroy our local autonomy. These views are also, in my judgement, absolutely opposed to those entertained by the great majority of the members of the Young Scots Society.”97 In any case, when, in 1912, it became clear that the Irish Home Rule Bill was not to form the first part in rolling federal legislation, Scottish Liberal MPs largely abandoned federal schemes, and instead they turned to the vigorous promotion of a purely Scottish Home Rule Bill. MacCallam Scott’s unsuccessful Federal Home Rule Bill of 3 July 1912 was followed by two purely Scottish Home Rule bills, those by Ian Macpherson on 15 May 1914 and Sir W.H. Cowan on 30 May 1914. Jalland notes that, in any case, Scottish Liberal MPs

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tended to equate Home Rule All Round with Scottish Home Rule and were less interested in the other issues involved in the establishment of federal Home Rule.98 Similarly, and unlike several Scottish Liberal MPs, the Young Scots were much less concerned with the tactics and schemes devised at Westminster to make Irish Home Rule more palatable than they were with the exigencies of improving Scottish government. Young Scots were not oblivious to events taking place in Ireland,99 yet their demand for Home Rule was primarily a response to Scottish concerns, related to the inadequacies in the governance of Scotland. Therefore, it was the restoration of a Scottish Parliament rather than schemes for federal Home Rule that preoccupied Young Scots.100 The Young Scots were also keen to ensure their independence in Home Rule campaigning, however, and resisted any attempt to sideline them within Liberal Party vehicles. Scottish Home Rule Council A clear manifestation of this renewed interest in Scottish Home Rule had been the formation of the Scottish National Committee (SNC) among Scottish MPs. Captain D.V. Pirie, MP for Aberdeen North (1896–1918), who had been a pro-Boer MP, was instrumental in the SNC’s formation. On 5 August 1910, twenty-one Scottish MPs101 organized themselves as the Scottish National Committee and published a manifesto advocating the necessity of devolved government for Scotland; notably, at least four of its original signatories were “non-Scotsmen.” Their activities seem to have been largely confined to holding a series of public meetings at which resolutions were passed supporting Scottish Home Rule.102 At the Edinburgh demonstration on 18 April 1911 the SNC shared the platform with three leading nationalists: Theodore Napier, Charles Waddie, and T.D. Wanliss.103 The YSS appears to have had an indirect hand in the formation of the Committee. Rolland Rainy, MP for Ayr (1906–1911) and a SNC member, stated that “[I]t was difficult to say who had been the first to think of it, and none of them pretended to the amount of spade work done by the ‘Young Scots’ among others.”104 Pirie conceived that the SNC and the YSS would play complementary roles, believing “that both Societies [the YSS and the SNC] are acting in complete unison.”105 Yet in July 1910, a month before the SNC’s official launch, Alexander MacLaren and two other members of the YSS

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Western Council Executive had met with Scottish MPs in London; they had failed to win support for their proposal to promote a joint effort between the proposed Scottish National Committee and the YSS.106 However by 1912 relations between the YSS and the SNC appear to have improved. YSS Secretary Thomas Lochhead (1912– 14), together with other Young Scots, had met with four SNC MPs, Munro Ferguson, Pirie, Chapple, and Watt, and had found that “these gentlemen seem to be extremely desirous of working with us and in everything they said they were clearly trying to meet us in all ways.” The result: when Dr Chapple’s motion on Scottish Home Rule was before Parliament in February 1912, Lochhead wrote to YSS branches urging them “to write their member to be in their places.” He had personally written to all the Scottish members, including the prime minister, the Welsh Labour and Liberal members, and the Irish Nationalists, to garner support for Scotland’s claim. Moreover, Lochhead “had thought of dealing with those gentlemen who were not in their places to assist us, but I find that a number of them are ill and only Churchill and Falconer remain to be dealt with.”107 Yet Hogge was dismissive of the SNC so long as they failed to put the government under any serious pressure. Addressing the Young Scots’ 1911 conference, he said: it did not matter to him or to them whether a certain number of Scottish Liberal members formed themselves into a Scottish Nationalist Committee or not; whether they held meetings in the country or not; they or he were not concerned about that; the test of whether those men are in earnest or not was – ‘Are they prepared to put the Government in difficulty in the House of Commons on the question of Scottish home rule?’ That was the whole point … so long as they were not prepared to put the government in difficulty in the House of Commons he questioned their bona-fides on Scottish home rule.108 YSS relations with the Liberal Party became strained once again following YSS’s involvement in the Liberal Party-dominated, but YSS-inspired, Scottish Home Rule Council. On 15 July 1912 the YSS sent a deputation to Westminster to meet with Scottish Liberal MPs to agree on a strategy to promote Scottish Home Rule. In the first place, controversy surrounded the selection of the four-man delegation: William Laughland, YSS president (1911–13); John Crosthwaite,

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YSS secretary (1907–12); Robert Hay, former YSS president (1907– 11); and Roland Muirhead, YSS vice-president (1911–15). Walter Murray, felt that the deputation is entirely irregular and nothing it can say or do will in any way bind the Society or the [National] Council. It is not a deputation from the Society, but merely a committee of inquiry chosen by the Home Rule Committee, with no powers whatsoever … In a proper deputation I had as much right to be invited as several of those chosen, and so had MacLaren and Haran.109 Murray was also concerned that “timid counsels” from Laughland and Brymer should not be held to be representative of the Society’s opinion, so he had written to J.M. Hogge to warn him accordingly.110 The meeting itself appears not to have been terribly successful. The YSS delegation failed to secure either a date for a joint YSS/Scots Liberal MPs demonstration or an undertaking to support an amendment to the Irish Home Rule Bill, which would have delayed the reduction of Irish members until Scotland had achieved Home Rule. As a member of the YSS delegation, Muirhead felt they got “a rather unsympathetic hearing” and suggested that this might have been caused by his own suggestion that “the Scots MPs’ promises for Scottish self-government might be likened to icebergs which gradually floated from North to South and as they came south gradually disappeared.”111 Alexander MacCallum Scott, one of the twentythree Scottish Liberal MPs who attended the meeting, provided an alternative assessment: “[T]he Young Scots deputation which came up today to wait on the Scottish Liberal Members were a poor lot – stated their case badly or rather did not state it at all. They really tried to bluff and to conceal the fact that what they really were after was a subsidy. The fact is they have reached the end of their tether.”112 MacCallum Scott’s dismissal of the YSS delegation may partly be explained by his own view that “there is now room, and indeed need, for a much wider propaganda – an Imperial Home Rule League,” his own pet project.113 Yet within a few weeks of the meeting the Scottish Home Rule Council (SHRC) was established. It brought together the YSS, the Scottish Liberal Association (SLA), the Scottish Women’s Liberal Association, and “unofficial” Liberal MPs under a single umbrella

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organization. Each grouping sent five delegates to the Council’s ruling body. Muirhead was in no doubt that it was the YSS that had been the key to the Council’s formation: “The Scottish Home Rule Council came into being as a result of YSS pressure,” and it was the YSS that remained “the active element giving vitality to the demand for self-government.”114 However, controversy soon surrounded the YSS’s role within the Council. Frustration grew at the slow pace of the Council’s campaign, and its failure to arrange a public meeting addressed by the secretary for Scotland. The Council’s annual report was accused of bolstering its statistics “by including meetings which it neither organised nor financed.” It was claimed that it was “the Young Scots who do the work for which the Council tries to take the credit.”115 More radical elements within the YSS believed that its close association with the Liberal Party through the SHRC had undermined the YSS’s reputation for independent action: “The YSS has seriously compromised its independence by linking itself between the men’s and the women’s official organizations. It has reduced itself to a mere appendage of a party.” The Council, it was suggested, had been a ploy “to draw the teeth of the Young Scots by inviting them into their parlour … Its [the YSS’s] work is now the work of the Home Rule Council … the once valiant and independent Young Scots who formerly demanded Home Rule this session are now well nigh inarticulate through being unequally yoked with procrastinating unbelievers.” The Young Scots were asked if they think that a Council in which numerically they are in a permanent minority, and which is largely dominated by Liberal officials and official Liberals, is ever going to do anything save at the bidding and with the benediction of the party whips. The central fact is that the Scottish Home Rule Council is essentially a party organization, of which the Young Scots Society is an integral part, a fact which is in flat contradiction to the constitution, the platform, and the historic contendings of the society.116 Alexander MacLaren, president of the YSS Western Council (1913–15), refuted the suggestion that the YSS had fallen into decline; rather this was a “period of marking time.” The formation of the Council represented a great success for the YSS; it meant that “they [the YSS] have practically brought round the official Liberal Party to their ideal. This is a great gain as it means that the question of

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Scottish Home Rule is with Scottish Liberals not a merely academic one, as it was for some time, but is now a question of immediate politics.”117 What finally put an end to the controversy was the organization of a National Conference and Demonstration, which took place on 8 November 1913, at the King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, and which was addressed by Secretary for Scotland Thomas MacKinnon Wood. The morning was devoted to a conference attended by five hundred representatives from town councils, parish councils, school boards, and trades’ councils – in other words, representatives of the various bodies that governed Scotland’s civil society, together with representatives of Young Scots Societies and of the Men’s and Women’s Liberal Associations. In the afternoon a demonstration attracted around three thousand people. At the demonstration itself, with twenty-three Scottish MPs in attendance, MacKinnon Wood pledged the Government’s support for the demand for Scottish Home Rule.118 Roland Muirhead, a Young Scot whose life spanned much of the national movement’s formative years, considered 1913 to be the high-water mark of the Scottish Home Rule campaign during his lifetime.119 Subsequent years did not hold the same promise. Thus, with government assurances that Scottish Home Rule would be forthcoming, and that a Scottish Home Rule Bill had passed its second reading in the House of Commons, there was cautious optimism among Young Scots during the immediate prewar period.120 At the YSS Annual Conference of 1914 the Society’s president, Kenneth MacIver (1913–15), referred to the remarkable progress that their cause of Scottish nationalism had achieved in the last five years, to the point where Home Rule was now viewed as inevitable. Robert Munro (later Lord Alness), the lord advocate and guest speaker at the YSS conference, declared that “he was satisfied that Scottish Home Rule was coming, as satisfied as that the sun would rise in the east tomorrow,”121 and retorted to critics who accused the Scottish Home Rule movement of lacking passion, by a contrast of Home Rulers in Scotland with their counterparts in Ireland; he joked that this implied that in order to be taken seriously Scots Home Rulers would have to adopt Irish tactics: “Did it mean that the Young Scots’ Society was to dissolve, was to sign a covenant and was to be reconstituted as a set of Scottish Volunteers? The argument seemed to reduce itself to absurdity. Did it really come to this, that the guns must speak as well as the electors?”122 The YSS continued to actively pursue its campaign for self-government: “during the

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summer of 1914 a caravan was loaned to the Society and was made full use of relays of speakers. During July, twenty-four places in Perthshire were visited and arrangements were being made for an Ayrshire campaign when war broke out on 4 August, and this great propaganda effort came to an end.”123 The outbreak of the First World War also killed the Scottish Home Rule bill that was before Parliament.

conclusion: “home rule all round” – in search of federation There were several barriers to the implementation of Scottish Home Rule legislation, what Christopher Harvie notably refers to as the “multiple crisis” of government versus the House of Lords, militant trade unionism, suffragettes, Ulster Unionists, and the kaiser, which enveloped the British government.124 Nevertheless, the Young Scots’ growing militancy in support of Home Rule ensured that it was kept on the political agenda; indeed in this they had a measure of success at a time during which the Liberal government faced a large number of both international and domestic challenges. However the YSS lacked leverage on Liberal MPs; while it is certainly true that there was a growing national feeling among Scottish MPs, only one, J.M. Hogge, can legitimately be thought of as a product of the Young Scots. Despite threatening to do so, the YSS refrained from standing an independent candidate during the Kilmarnock Burghs by-election. So perhaps inevitably, and despite the Young Scots’ efforts, Scottish Home Rule took a backseat at Westminster. The Scottish Nation’s correspondent, a Scottish MP, reported that the 1913 demonstration in Edinburgh at which MacKinnon Wood had pledged the government’s support for Home Rule was in retrospect merely “for home consumption. The real truth is that the scheme is in the Government refrigerator at Westminster, and nothing will thaw it but public pressure from without.”125 In 1914 this, too, was wishful thinking. Scots had other things on their minds. However, Home Rule agitation did have an upshot. Those measures that were adopted, while falling far short of Home Rule, nevertheless provided Scotland with a good deal of administrative autonomy, particularly in the realm of welfare provision, and in the process they revamped British federalism. It is reasonable to surmise that the effect was to deprive Home Rulers of one of their key

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grievances: that decisions affecting Scotland were being taken outside Scotland. Young Scots argued that the embryonic welfare state should be distinctively Scottish in order that it respond most effectively to Scotland’s peculiar needs. The introduction of the National Insurance scheme to Scotland demonstrates the point well. J.M. Hogge argued: “[I]f we are to have Home Rule in the immediate future we must preserve for ourselves the control of our own Insurance.”126 This was successfully achieved. Yet the very success of the fight to ensure Scottish control over this welfare provision had this unintended consequence: far from paving the way for the imminent recall of the Scottish Parliament, the newly created Scottish Insurance Commission, and bodies like it, instead took the place of a parliament and undermined the urgency of the demand for Scottish Home Rule. F.J. Robertson’s review of Hogge’s pamphlet, Scotland Insured, makes the point: The striking success of the scheme on this side of the Border [with England] is a magnificent tribute to the administrative genius of the Scot. Mr Hogge pointedly observes that ‘Scotland, so far as National Insurance is concerned, is under Home Rule’. As a result, the percentage of persons who are insured is higher in Scotland than in England, Ireland or Wales. The vast organization which achieved this distinction could never have been worked from an office in London, and all efforts to weaken the position of the Scottish Commissioners must be sternly resisted.127 This is key, and it is therefore worth reiterating: the very success of administrative devolution effectively undermined the campaign for Scottish Home Rule by removing a central motive. Additional anecdotal evidence for this assertion is found in the changing letterhead of the Young Scot-inspired International Scots Home Rule League and in the decline in support from local government. That organization had been particularly successful in attracting support from individuals prominent in local government. In early 1914 its letterhead listed twenty-eight serving provosts as honorary vice-presidents (including the lord provosts of Glasgow and Dundee, but overwhelmingly these were provosts from small-town Scotland),128 by the middle of 1914 the figure had risen to thirty-seven (and also included a Canadian Senator), but by 1922 no serving provosts were

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listed.129 This provides empirical support for Paterson’s claim that the welfare state in Scotland was not only a response to socialist agitation, “it was equally a displacement of nationalist pressure for a separate Scottish legislature.”130 Scotland, or more correctly Scottish bureaucrats, therefore acquired the power to administer Westminster legislation. The initiation of welfare legislation during this period set in motion a series of acts that would ultimately produce in Scotland a British welfare state, but “with Scottish characteristics.” This development, which admittedly conferred on Scotland a good deal of administrative autonomy, is quite different from legislative autonomy and the power to initiate legislation, something Quebec’s provincial government has enjoyed within the Canadian federation.131 Ian MacLeod argues that this period effectively brought an end to a distinctive Scottish politics: The old issues were gone. In the place of struggles for free trade and free institutions were the rising demands of social reform and working class politics. As a result political controversy in Scotland, by 1900, had become almost indistinguishable from that of England. In 1880 matters could turn on things specifically Scottish but twenty years later, “Scottish politics” had been reduced to disputes between Scots over issues identical in Birmingham or Glasgow.132 True, Scots were grappling with issues identical to those in other parts of Britain, Europe, and North America, yet these struggles took a specifically Scottish form, and through their support of Home Rule the Young Scots sought a distinctly Scottish solution. Federation was viewed as a way of balancing geopolitical concerns – allowing the Westminster parliament to devote itself to legislating on imperial and international questions – with the demands made by Scottish civil society – and allowing a Scottish parliament to legislate on specifically domestic matters. In other words, it was also a way of formalizing the federal relationship that Scotland enjoyed within the United Kingdom. Young Scots could draw on a range of examples in support of their case, extolling the virtues of federalism and the pitfalls of centralization. For example, the Young Scot, Alexander MacLaren argued in a wide-ranging essay that many of the instances of

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secession could be linked to centralized government, which “seeks to express only the opinion at the centre, and to crush out altogether local or smaller national ideas and aspirations.” MacLaren’s general point was not that nationalism was the inevitable result of centralization – Czech nationalism grew from a revolt by the Czech lands’ German-speaking nobility – but rather that decentralized constitutions offered a more liberal and, therefore, more efficient means of governance. He cited numerous examples: centralization had resulted in the secession of the colonies of Spain, Portugal, and Holland, the contemporaneous problems facing French and German colonies, the possible breakup of the Austrian Empire; it had led to Belgium’s break from Holland, Italy’s break from Austria, the attempts by Poland and Hungary to break free, Norway’s break from Sweden, and Balkan secession from Turkey. Within the British Empire, the loss of the United States had been the direct result of centralization. In contrast, wherever decentralization had been practiced it had proved successful. This was the case with self-government measures introduced in dominions such as Canada and South Africa (following the Boers’ defeat in 1902). There was also a suggestion that decentralization may enhance economic performance; both of Britain’s economic rivals, the USA and Germany, were federations. The absence of a domestic system of federation in Britain was notable.133 Therefore, the desire for Scottish Home Rule was linked to the more general liberal concern to decentralize power, as well as an understanding that providing voice within a political system was likely to engender loyalty and therefore mitigate against exit.134

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6 French Canada and the Search for Consociation

In the face of British imperialism the Nationalistes declared their loyalty exclusively to Canada. But what kind of Canada were they defending? In the period since Confederation a reorientation had taken place in the thinking of many among French Canada’s elite. Confederation had shifted their political horizon, from the old Province of Canada – Quebec and Ontario – to the much wider Confederation of Canada and its westward expansion. Confederation slowly began to exert a profound influence among key sections of the French Canadian political elite. Surprisingly, it was Henri Bourassa rather more than Wilfrid Laurier who captured the shifting mood of French Canadians.1 As Ralph Heintzman notes, it was during this period that French Quebecers gradually became aware of the existence of French-speaking groups in other provinces through the various disputes over minority rights. What Bourassa and the Nationalistes did was to articulate the belief that these were fellow French Canadians “members of the same cultural and national family, rather than simply allied peoples.” Moreover, they regarded “this wider space occupied by the entire French Canadian family as the appropriate national ‘space’ within which the French Canadian destiny was to be played out.”2 There were political implications from this: the Canadian constitution needed to better reflect this distinctiveness. This meant, effectively, a consociational arrangement in which French and British Canadians would be politically equal. In many ways Bourassa sought to revive the dualism characteristic of the Union Governments of the mid-nineteenth century; however, he did so in an entirely new way. This chapter examines the Nationalistes’ binational vision, with its consociational features, and their promotion of binationalism in both the provincial and federal arenas.

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b i n at i o n a l c a n a da The possession of a purely Canadian standpoint in relation to imperial relations has already been discussed, therefore this chapter focuses on what this was to mean for federal relations. The Nationalistes were as concerned with the position of French Canadians within Canada as they were with the position of Canada within the British Empire. Their focus oscillated between Canada’s imperial relations (Boer War, Imperial Unity, the naval question) and Canada’s federal relations, with a particular emphasis on the plight of French-speaking minorities outside Quebec. In particular, the fate of Ontario’s substantial Francophone minority dominated Nationaliste thinking after 1912. The Ligue nationaliste’s program, published in 1903, had advocated: “For the Canadian provinces, in their relations with federal power, the largest measure of autonomy compatible with the federal link.”3 The suggestion was that provincial governments, rather than the federal government, were best placed to attend to provincial matters. While the Ligue stressed the right of minorities to separate schools, there was no suggestion that Quebec should have any more powers than other provinces. On the face of it this position broke little new ground and was much less innovative than its other policy proposals.4 Yet this belied the position adopted by Henri Bourassa and his conception of a binational and bicultural Canada, what O’Connell refers to as Bourassa’s “integral dualism.”5 In this view Canada was composed of two nations: the British and the French. Binationalism, or equality between these two nations, was to govern all aspects of federal relations: relations between the federal government and the provinces, among provinces themselves, and between provinces and their minority populations. Thus, a balance had to be struck between provincial rights and minority rights, summed up by Olivar Asselin in 1909: “In Canada’s internal relations, the safeguarding of Provincial autonomy on the one hand and of the Constitutional Rights of minorities on the other hand.”6 Binationalism was to govern the very development of Canada itself. Immigration, which reached unprecedented levels during this period, threatened to substantially reduce French influence in Canada. The Nationalistes argued that a binational framework was therefore essential to ensuring that Canada maintained a binational character. This is what Asselin was getting at when he argued for “[T]he settlement of the country with a sole view to strengthening Canadian nationhood.”7 The issues of minority schooling and

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immigration will be returned to later. The Nationaliste conception of Canada was above all binational. Henri Bourassa and the Nationalistes were clear that French Canadians constituted a distinct nationality, and their concern was to secure the best means for its survival. The creation of a French Catholic state, as advocated by Jules-Paul Tardivel, was ruled out as unrealistic: Some of our compatriots envisage with happiness the day where we will reconstitute in America, both legally and in practice, a New France, a free state where our people will dominate unencumbered: it is most certainly a legitimate and attractive dream … But it is still a dream; and what we must attend to is our duty to the present.8 It was Canada that held out the most immediate hope for the survival of French Canada. Yet Bourassa did not urge the French and British populations of Canada to give up their distinct nationalities: “I, for one, respect and admire in my English-speaking fellowcountryman his love for his dear old and glorious Mother country … I have a right to expect that he should reciprocate that feeling by showing the same regard for his fellow-countrymen who still keep in their hearts a love for France, the land of their origin.”9 Instead, Bourassa believed that it was only by sharing a common Canadian viewpoint that both nationalities could be reconciled to one another: “I say that the only sure way of obviating fatal misunderstandings lies in a determination that we shall, both of us, French and English alike, look at all constitutional and political questions from a purely Canadian standpoint.”10 The Nationalistes sought to convince both French and British Canadians alike that a binational state held advantages for both communities. To French Canadians it offered the most immediate hope for the continued maintenance of the French language and the Catholic religion. To British Canadians, the Nationalistes argued, the very existence of a vibrant French-speaking population performed a check on US expansion. It distinguished Canada from the United States, and it provided Canada with a distinct mentality; without the French, and given the shared “Anglo-Saxon” Protestant background of Americans and British Canadians, the United States and Canada would inevitably drift together. Therefore, Bourassa could with some justification claim that “It is not French which

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threatens the national unity of Canada, it is English,” since it was the English language “that permits American influence to rapidly penetrate every area of intellectual, social, and economic life in English Canada” and has led to its virtual “Americanization.” Canada was particularly vulnerable to absorption since there was no other great nation to counterbalance the USA’s continental influence. The solution: “the presence of a considerable ethnic group speaking a different language, having other traditions and another ideal than those of the American people” Therefore, argued the Nationalistes, French should not only be maintained in Quebec but also expanded throughout the length and breadth of Confederation, and particularly in Western Canada, as a bulwark against US influence.11 Bourassa noted that it had also been George-Étienne Cartier’s view to establish the French in Manitoba as a bulwark against Americanization: “This was Cartier’s thinking, agreed and supported by Macdonald, as he undertook to make Manitoba a second Quebec.”12 Thus, binationalism was fundamental to the very survival of Canada itself. Bourassa also sought to persuade British Canadians that the French language complimented the English language: “I want to show that there is for the entire Canadian nation, for the AngloProtestants as for the French Canadian Catholics, a distinct advantage and even a strict need to preserve the French language and to encourage its expansion in all parts of the Confederation”13 While English was the language of business and industry, French was the language of art, culture, and diplomacy, and a superior civilization in the view of francophile Nationalistes, like Bourassa, Asselin, and Fournier. The French were to play the part of the culturally superior Greeks to the British Romans. So it was not for French Canadians alone that binationalism was sought: “a day will surely come when the Anglo-Canadians leave their rut where their preoccupation with mercantilism keeps them stuck, they will thank us on their knees for having kept in Canada this invaluable element of civilization and high culture.”14 History was called on in support of the Nationalistes’ binationalism. The 1867 Confederation was held to have been a compact between two founding nations. This was a proposition that gained currency during this period, and it was a recurrent theme in Nationaliste writings.15 Olivar Asselin expressed this view of Confederation: “The Fathers of Confederation set themselves a two-fold purpose. First, they wanted to rid the Central Government of such business that

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could better be adjusted by the local authorities. Second, they wanted the two main elements of the Canadian people – French and English – to enjoy equal rights under the constitution.”16 Thus, Confederation was held to embody both federal and consociational interests. However, it was the spirit of the constitution rather than its letter that inspired the Nationalistes,17 not least since repeated judicial interpretation of the British North America Act failed to support the Nationaliste position. The historical precedent established by the Union governments of the 1840s and 1850s was also inspirational. Formally, the Union Act of 1840 had established a unitary system of government; however, in practice, it was the very model of binational accommodation between French and British Canadians. Comparative investigation convinced the Nationalistes that binationalism was possible. Henri Bourassa envisioned that Canada could evolve along the lines of those European states that contained more than one linguistic group, such as Belgium and Switzerland. He made several trips to Europe to explore and document the ways in which these states accommodated their distinct linguistic communities. He studied the operation of bilingualism in Belgium, Wales, and Alsace.18 On 22 October 1914, at a lecture under the auspices of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste to benefit the Belgium Relief Fund, Bourassa extolled the virtues of bilingualism in Belgium, where Flemish now had equality with French following a successful fight by the Flemish to secure their language and separate schools. Crucially, this had been accomplished without any threat to national unity.19 This was a constant theme: to be successful countries need not be based on a single language as in the USA and Germany; bilingualism, Bourassa extolled, had met with success in Wales, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Alsace. He was determined to respond to those who claimed that a bilingual education was not practical. Olivar Asselin, too, emphasized that these counties offered alternative ways of political development: “We are too apt, through selfcomplacency, to lose sight of such admirably governed countries as Belgium and Switzerland. In criticizing the defects of the American Constitution, we are too prone to forget the defects of our own. At all events, the Canadian Federal System cannot work out its best results unless applied in the fair spirit in which it was devised,”20 suggesting that consociationalism was required to allow federation to work. According to Bourassa, Switzerland seemed particularly relevant for Canada:

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The unity of the Swiss people was accomplished, because after the age-old struggles of race and religion, inspired by the sectarian and narrow minded spirit which still reigns in English Canada, the diverse groups of the Swiss people agreed to base national unity on the liberty of each group and the respect of their particular rights.21 Thus, the Nationalistes argued, cultural uniformity was not a requirement for political stability: If one continues to claim that a bi-ethnic and bilingual people cannot form a homogeneous nation and that the minority must speak the language of the majority, one confronts the most glaring contradictions of history … is Switzerland any less ready to defend its liberties and protect the integrity of its territory against all aggressors?22 And Asselin again: “the example of Belgium and Switzerland proves that the coexistence of several distinct nationalities does not harm the material and intellectual progress of a country.”23 Yet Europe also held out warnings for Canada. Bourassa and the Nationalistes frequently drew parallels between Ontario’s Regulation 17, which limited schooling in French, and Germany’s heavy-handed governance of Alsace and Lorraine since the 1870 conquest. Bourassa argued that the same motive inspired both the Prussian regime and the Ontario regime: “one emperor, one empire, one flag, one language.” He speculated further that on balance the educational system established by the Prussians offered greater opportunity for the teaching of French than Ontario schooling under Regulation 17, and that there was even some justification for their policies given the fear of a French attempt to recapture the territories and the fact that a substantial proportion of the population was of German origin. Therefore the Ontarians were more Prussian than the Prussians.24 Designed to embarrass and shame the Ontario government comments such as these had the effect of further inflaming the situation and hardening the position of the Ontario government. There is some debate here. If Bourassa and the Nationalistes really wanted to appeal to British Canadian opinion in Ontario unfavourable comparisons with Prussia were never likely to endear them to this population. Yet, as Levitt notes, it was only natural that Bourassa should

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point out the irony that, while British Canadians claimed that the Great War was a fight for freedom abroad, at home FrancoOntarians were denied equal rights.25 Moreover, Bourassa closely followed events surrounding demands for Irish Home Rule within the British Empire.26 The demands of the Catholic majority for Home Rule were being frustrated by opposition from the minority Ulster Protestants and their influential backers at Westminster. This, too, was cause for concern. Was accommodation any more likely between an English-speaking Protestant majority and a Frenchspeaking Catholic minority? The Nationalistes believed that it was, and that the Province of Quebec stood as an example to the rest-of-Canada. Quebec possessed two distinct civil societies, French- and English-speaking, and it had found success at accommodating both. Two illustrations from Montreal make the point. The separate administration of schools by the (French) Catholic and (English) Protestant School Boards ensured respect for the right of national minorities to separate schooling. Municipal elections also reflected an accommodation between the city’s majority French- and minority English-speaking populations: in mayoralty elections there was effectively a rotation between French and English-speaking candidates, despite the fact the French speakers constituted a growing proportion of Montreal’s population. Bourassa believed that it was French Canadians who were largely responsible for this accommodation, since it was they who were willing to elect English Protestants in predominantly French Catholic ridings; a precedent not followed in English constituencies.27 Therefore, the Nationalistes argued that if Quebec, whose population was overwhelmingly French, recognized the rights of its Anglophone minority why should other provinces not treat their Francophone minorities in a similar fashion? Olivar Asselin warned that the failure to honour minority rights would lead to a movement in French Canada in favour of its annexation by the United States: “The moment we lose our old constitutional immunities, we have no more reason to prefer British rule to American rule. Nor must it be thought that our quiet enjoyment of equal rights in the sole province of Quebec … will suffice to ensure our loyalty to the British crown.”28 Given their concerns, and the examples suggesting an alternative route was possible, how did the Nationalistes conceive that binationalism would work in practice? In their writings the Nationalistes

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enunciated many of the ideas that have since become associated with the practice of consociationalism: elite agreement, mutual veto, coalition government, maintenance of self-governing communities, and proportionality.29 To begin with, the Nationalistes had a particular conception of federalism, one that was elite-driven. So much of their effort was aimed at influencing the political elites of both French- and English-speaking Canada: their newspapers were aimed at men of influence rather than at securing a mass circulation. Bourassa’s privileged background may explain his own elitism. He possessed a paternalistic noblesse oblige; educated elites had a duty to shape public opinion and to remain independent minded and sufficiently free of party allegiance. Bourassa, together with his leading followers, had a particular disdain for party politics in which principle was sacrificed to political expediency, and he believed that there was a want in Canada of independent men free from party allegiance. Bourassa held that Britain offered an example: There are to be found in England [sic] a large class of highly educated men who closely watch the current public affairs, making their views known in newspapers and magazines, before the various clubs in social circles. These men, free as they are from all party ties, do indeed exert a considerable influence upon public opinion. The want of such a class of men is precisely what is needed here.30 This was, of course, an idealized view of mid-nineteenth-century liberalism in practice, a liberalism before the age of mass democracy,31 which in Britain was fast giving way to a more popular democracy. In addition, elites had to be free of prejudice. Bourassa, Asselin, and Fournier were disdainful of the majoritarian populism emanating from both linguistic communities, which respectively sought French-language ascendancy in Quebec and English-language ascendancy outside Quebec. This was the “army of politicians in both sections thriving on popular prejudice.”32 Bourassa, in particular, stressed that the Nationalistes’ words and actions should be resolutely Canadian without hyphenation, and he was critical of Armand Lavergne’s anglophobic tendencies.33 There was a realization, whether conscious or not, that accommodation was only possible through the agreement of both French and English Canada’s political elites: only elites, representative of their communities and sufficiently

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independent of party allegiance, would be in a position to work for a binational Canada: “A mutual regard for racial sympathies on both sides, and a proper discharge of our exclusive duty to this land of ours, such is the only ground upon which it is possible for us to meet, so as to work out our national problems.”34 In order to facilitate accommodation, Bourassa envisioned that both French and British Canadian elites had a duty to become bilingual (something that was not expected of the mass of the French Canadian population, which was “neither possible nor desirable”): those by their wealth, intellectual culture, and political and social position, ought to lead our people and maintain the union between our neighbours and ourselves. To them falls the duty to learn English, to draw near to the leading class of the English majority, to study thoroughly the temperament, the aspirations, and the bent of Anglo-Canadians. The same duty is imposed on the leading classes of English Canada.35 This would allow French- and English-speaking Canadian elites to put forward their ideas honestly and frankly without fear of misunderstanding. This view may explain the Nationalistes’ growing antipathy toward Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Olivar Asselin was indignant that the prime minister would appear to be so disparaging of French Canadian grievances: “throughout the School wrangle, Sir Wilfrid Laurier has been denouncing the Quebec champions of minority rights as firebrands, to be dealt with as outlaws.”36 Laurier’s was a familiar political strategy of securing the middle ground by painting the opposing views as extremist, unreasonable, and even ridiculous. It was a strategy not without risk. The danger was that the middle ground satisfied neither side. The Nationalistes interpreted Laurier’s failure to intervene in the North West schools question and insist on the autonomy of French schools in the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan as a betrayal of Frenchlanguage rights. However, it took the “double whammy” of reciprocity and the naval question, which alienated both English and French Canadians alike, to finally derail this strategy at the 1911 federal election. Laurier’s apparent acceptance of unsatisfactory compromises infuriated the Nationalistes most. Instead, they maintained that a firmer stand was required on issues of nationality.

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Perhaps naively the Nationalistes believed that British Canadians could be persuaded of the merits of their case if it was put to them squarely. Even as late as 1913, following a tour of the Canadian West, Bourassa returned to Quebec convinced that most English Canadian prejudice against French Canadians could be dissolved by better acquaintance with them.37 Throughout their campaigns the Nationalistes sought support among English Canadians. Henri Bourassa emphasized this: in each of our struggles for the defence of the French position, a French interest, we have appealed first to the intelligence, the patriotism and the spirit of justice of those Anglo-Canadians most likely to understand the enormous advantages which result from the association, without assimilation, of the two principle ethnic or linguistic groups of Canada. We have lost no opportunity to call forth the total or partial adherence of eminent AngloCanadians to our ideas and aspirations.38 The rhetoric deployed by the Nationalistes may have turned away potential supporters. Nevertheless, Bourassa and the Nationalistes did find allies in English-speaking Canada, among them the maverick Liberal Goldwin Smith and the Quebec Conservative politician and lawyer C.H. Cahan. Bourassa and the Nationalistes supported government by “grand coalition.” What they had in mind was not a coalition of political parties but a coalition of independent-minded individuals, representative of their national community and willing to enter a dialogue with representatives of the other national community in the interests of forging a shared Canadian future. During the 1907 provincial election Bourassa sought a union of “good will of all shades: reds [Liberals], blues [Conservatives], and nationalists, English and French, Catholics and Protestants. Let’s send to the Legislature clever, honest, and independent men more attached to their country than their party.”39 Such a coalition would be free of party politics, which Bourassa believed had been detrimental to the development of Canada. Accordingly he eschewed the very idea of forming a new provincial or federal political party based on Nationaliste ideas. Instead, Nationaliste candidates stood as indépendants, nationalistes, autonomistes, or some combination. For much of this period the Nationaliste caucus in both the federal parliament and the

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provincial assembly comprised just two individuals: Bourassa and Armand Lavergne. Nationaliste candidates increasingly stood with the blessing of Frederick Monk’s Quebec Conservatives on a ridingper-riding basis. Yet they lacked the support of a province-wide organization. Moreover, as chapter 4 described, the loose alliance formed between Nationalistes and Conservatives at the 1911 federal election quickly fell apart amid much acrimony: all but two of its twenty-one members joined the Conservative administration. It is possible to surmise that the formation of a provincial party had been ruled out for the very obvious reason that it would have jeopardized the very goal for which they strived, namely a binational Canada. The creation of an ostensibly French-language political party committed to some variation of social Catholic ideas would have undermined the Nationalistes’ desire that the French language and the Catholic religion be treated in the same manner as the English language and Protestant religion. A party that appeared to privilege French and Catholicism would have destroyed any hope of such a rapprochement.40 Instead, the Nationalistes would have laid themselves open to charges of “separatism” from the press (both Frenchand English-language), which consistently misrepresented their views. Yet the Nationalistes were not unwilling to attempt to use the existing system to their own ends. For example, during the 1911 federal election they gambled that a sufficiently large number of elected Nationalistes could hold the balance of power and thereby be in a position to direct government policy. The gamble did not pay off. It was the Nationalistes’ commitment to binationalism together with their disdain for party politics that explain why they did not follow Catholic Ireland in forming a political party along the lines of the Irish Parliamentary Party, a party in which Irish nationalism and Catholicism were inextricably linked.41 The Nationalistes favoured the largest measure of autonomy for provinces within the existing Canadian federation. Yet there was an important qualification: provinces had a duty to respect Canada’s binational character, its “cultural dualism.” Thus, “dualism” was also stressed: the respect for the duality of languages and the right of national minorities to separate schools. This was a call for the mutual recognition of the autonomy of Canada’s French and British national communities, embodied above all by respect for each community’s control over education. Two final consociational markers can also be inferred from the positions taken by the Nationalistes. A “mutual veto” was never

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discussed, yet clearly minority schooling and immigration were both issues where the Nationalistes felt that French Canadian influence was being undermined, and that both were detrimental to the binational development of Canada. Indeed, on the question of schooling the Nationalistes urged Prime Minister Laurier to intervene, to exercise a federal veto. These were issues vital to French Canada, and they received short shrift from English-speaking Canada. Mutual recognition of the cultural autonomy of French and British Canadians was, however, a key component of the Nationaliste program. Again, while the Nationalistes never used the term, proportionality was a persistent theme in their campaigns. In particular, they were adamant that federal institutions should reflect Canada’s binational character. Two grievances were recurrent: the use of French and the employment of French Canadians in the federal bureaucracy. Although the federal government was bound to reply to correspondence from French Canadians in French this was very different from the practice of official bilingualism: there was no requirement that civil servants should be bilingual, with the result that the French used was frequently substandard. Indeed, there were few outward signs to reflect Canada’s binational character: excise and postage stamps only became bilingual in the 1920s. While French Canadians were overrepresented in the federal bureaucracy before 1900, during the period under study, and until 1975, they remained grossly underrepresented. The Nationalistes could also have added that in terms of political representation, both within the House of Commons and the federal cabinet, French Canadians were consistently underrepresented. It was in the federal cabinet that underrepresentation was the most blatant. While the proportion of French Canadians within the Canadian population was around 30 percent, it was only in the Ministry of Fisheries that they were sufficiently represented. In contrast, while they were slightly overrepresented in the lower-status supportive and coordinative ministries, in the high-status policymaking and human capital ministries they were substantially underrepresented, and shut out entirely of finance, trade, and commerce.42 These facts were true of an era in which French Canadians could boast their first prime minister.

e a r ly b i n at i o n a l d i s p u t e s Despite their stated view that their primary concern was the education of voters, time and again the Nationalistes were drawn into

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both federal and provincial politics. Bourassa reconciled with Laurier following his split over the South African War. In particular, Laurier’s opposition to Chamberlain’s scheme for greater political and military union of the Empire during the 1902 Imperial Conference reassured Bourassa.43 During this period both Bourassa and the newly elected Lavergne were content to serve as Liberal MPs while pursuing the Nationaliste cause. Indeed, Bourassa had contemplated retiring from politics to become the postmaster of Montreal. However, given the looming debate on the status of the Catholic minority in the two new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, to be set up from the North-Western Territories following the federal election, Laurier persuaded Bourassa to stay.44 In the federal election of 1904 the Nationalistes’ two representatives in Ottawa, Bourassa and Lavergne, were re-elected as Liberals. Yet the subsequent debate in 1905 on the Autonomy Bills strained the close relationship that had developed between the Nationalistes and the government. At issue was the provision of French and Catholic schooling. Threats to French schooling outside the Province of Quebec was a recurrent issue for French Canadians at the turn of the century. When Henri Bourassa had first been elected to the House of Commons in 1896, one of the first acts of the new prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier, was to appoint him to negotiate a compromise with the Province of Manitoba, which had restricted the provision of schooling in French to its Francophone population. The result was the Greenway-Laurier compromise, which succeeded in temporarily resolving the question. Hélène Pelletier-Baillargeon argues that it was during the campaign surrounding the Autonomy Bill that the Ligue finally succeeded in capturing French Canadian public opinion. Bourassa found particular success among young clerics such as Lionel Groulx, who found in Bourassa a defender of separate Catholic schooling.45 The 1905 Autonomy Bill’s apparent relegation of the French language to the same status as the more recent immigrant languages infuriated the Nationalistes. Armand Lavergne gave voice to this feeling: “In giving the French Canadian, who has lived on the land since its discovery, equal rights and privileges with the Doukhobor or the Galician, who have just disembarked, we have opened a gulf between eastern and western Canadians which nothing will fill.”46 Asselin sought a much broader base of support for the movement, however, one that included all shades of nationalist opinion. He viewed the

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struggle not as one solely concerned with the provision of Catholic schooling but more generally with the future of the French language and culture in Western Canada.47 This was to be a recurrent theme during this period. A very different controversy arose in 1906. The Sunday Bill sought to impose Sunday observance on Quebec in line with Ontario. The agitation for this bill came from Protestant churches in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces, which wanted to enshrine Sunday observance in law. The measure found some sympathy with Quebec’s Catholic clergy. Archbishop Bruchési of Montreal had publicly endorsed it. However, to the Nationalistes such a measure was both unnecessary – since such observance should properly lie with individual conscience and the moral role of the Church – and unwelcome; there was no comparable agitation for such legislation in Quebec. Moreover, it threatened the civil rights and social organization that Quebec had enjoyed under the British constitution. Bourassa questioned why Laurier had not seen fit to give to Ontario what it desired without imposing on Quebec what it did not. The controversy was resolved when the Senate amended the bill, ensuring that the final decision on Sunday observance would be made by provincial legislatures.48 Armand Lavergne championed the official status of French in Canada, to give it an equal standing with English. Specifically, he sought to promote the use of French on coins, on postage stamps, and in the postal service more generally. In 1907 he introduced a bill to the House of Commons to create a bilingual federal civil service.49 Jules Fournier at Le Nationaliste lent his support to the campaign. Fournier pointed out that in Ottawa Laurier’s fellow French Canadians were to be found among the city’s street sweepers, snow removers, and messengers, since “French Canadians are banished from all positions of importance”; for example, only four out of eighty civil servants in the Ministry of Post were French Canadians.50 This agitation appears to have had some limited success.51 It was several years later before the federal government took even the smallest steps toward official bilingualism: excise stamps became bilingual in 1923, and postage stamps in 1927.52 Lavergne’s efforts met with greater success in the Quebec provincial arena. Lavergne’s struggle on the federal stage had fuelled demands in Quebec that companies operating in Quebec and receiving public subsidies should give equal prominence to both the French and English languages.53 Olivar Asselin had direct experience: he was incensed

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when a telegraph operator failed to correctly communicate a message in French.54 Legislation was enacted in 1910, known as “la loi Lavergne,” which stipulated that railway, steamship, telephone, telegraph, and electric companies would have to use both French and English when communicating with the Quebec public.55 During these episodes the Nationalistes utilized what proved to be a fairly effective campaigning strategy. Le Nationaliste published large extracts of Bourassa’s speeches in the House of Commons together with its own strongly worded editorials. This was reinforced by an organization of rallies and protest meetings held under the auspices of the Ligue. This proved to be an altogether more effective means of disseminating Bourassa’s views than the more spontaneous activism employed during the Boer War.56 For example, rallies were held in Montreal on 17 April 1905 at the Monument National to protest the Alberta/Saskatchewan Bill and on 29 June 1906 at the Champs de Mars to protest the Sunday Bill.57 These rallies also had the power to attract increasingly large crowds: the Manège Militaire rally in Quebec City, in December 1903, was attended by six thousand people, while the Saint Roch rally on 5 August 1907 attracted fifteen thousand.58 However, caution needs to be exercised when using these rallies to gauge the popularity of the Nationalistes, since it is highly likely that these rallies attracted both the committed and the curious: in an age before radio and television the lively oratory of Bourassa and the young speakers with whom he shared platforms with provided an entertaining spectacle.59

corruption and colonization: b i n at i o n a l i s m i n t h e p rov i n c i a l a r e n a During 1907 the Nationalistes’ attention became increasingly focused on Quebec City and provincial politics. Two issues characterized their involvement: corruption and colonization. In November 1906, Le Nationaliste alleged that two provincial ministers, Jean Prévost and Adélard Turgeon, had agreed to sell large areas of land in the Abitibi region on the supposed route of the Grand Trunk Pacific to a Belgian national, Baron de l’Épine. The agreed price was a dollar an acre, with seventy cents going to the Treasury and thirty cents to the Liberal Party’s election fund. Members of the government denied the existence of such a fund. Prévost sued Asselin and Le Nationaliste. The resulting trial became a sensation in Quebec.60

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This desire to expose corruption in the provincial realm initially prompted the Nationalistes’ entry into provincial politics. To Bourassa, the issue of corruption was linked with the failure to achieve biculturalism. The Abitibi affair was an indictment not only of the governance of Quebec by Lomer Gouin’s Liberal provincial administration, but also of Prime Minister Laurier’s Liberal Party machine in Quebec. (At the time, the Liberal Party constituted a single organization, encompassing both federal and provincial wings of the party.) As Liberal leader, Laurier exercised considerable influence over the fortunes of his Quebec lieutenants. To Bourassa, party interest had outweighed public interest. Bourassa was motivated by his determination to ensure the standing of French Canadians within Confederation: it was crucially important that Francophone Quebec prove to English Canada that it was capable of good government and therefore a worthy partner with which to build Canada. Initially, a commitment to biculturalism rather than to social reform prompted Bourassa’s entry into the provincial arena.61 Olivar Asselin had been influential in persuading his mentor to enter the provincial arena and to take up many of these issues. Bourassa confirmed, “It is in large part giving in to your [Asselin’s] pressure that I successively abandoned my federal mandate.”62 Although Bourassa later questioned the wisdom of entering provincial politics: “In some ways, this foray into a new area for us was perhaps a mistake.”63 The Nationalistes’ involvement in Quebec’s provincial politics was guided by the third part of the Ligue’s program, namely the promotion of an essentially Canadian economic development. Joseph Levitt describes this part of the program thus: “What the Nationalists did was to embed a design for the economic and social progress of French Canada into a programme for Canadian nationalism.”64 In doing so, the Nationalistes were responding to the challenges posed by industrialization more as French Canadians and Catholics than as Canadian nationalists. There is some truth to this yet there was a certain consistency to the Nationalistes’ actions. Jules Fournier described how these reforms fitted into the Nationalistes’ overall program: to build a Canadian nation, we must not only keep Canadian forces in Canada (anti-imperialism) and ensure internal peace (respect the constitutional rights of provinces, rational settlement of the country, etc.), but above all, use natural resources for the

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welfare and contentment of the people. To express it differently, we consider good social and economic legislation, either at the federal or the provincial levels, as the first condition of national greatness.65 Olivar Asselin also stressed the importance of these social and economic reforms, arguing that they were “possibly, the most important article in the Nationalist programme.”66 In late summer 1907, motivated by the hostile reception he had received from provincial Liberals when he had addressed a meeting in Laurier’s constituency, Bourassa began a speaking tour of Quebec in which he developed what amounted to a provincial platform: the province’s management of natural resources was condemned, while the reform of the justice system, labour legislation, the educational system, and colonization was urged.67 Bourassa’s hand was forced when Adélard Turgeon, the recipient of many of the Nationalistes’ attacks, challenged him to resign his seat in Ottawa and stand against him in his home riding of Bellechasse. Bourassa rashly accepted. He lost. However, in the provincial election of 1908 Bourassa had greater success. This time he had the tacit support of Quebec’s provincial Conservatives. Leading Quebec Conservatives, such as T. Chase-Casgrain and Frederick Monk, saw an opportunity for the Conservatives to rebuild in Quebec.68 Bourassa contested two ridings, Saint-Jacques (the Quebec premier’s home riding) and Saint-Hyacinthe. Armand Lavergne resigned his federal seat to contest Montmagny. Four other Nationaliste candidates ran: J.-E. Bédard in Beauport, now a suburb of Quebec City; Napoléon Garceau in Drummondville; Joseph Rainville in Verchères on the south shore of Montreal; and J.-R. Labelle in Iberville, south of Montreal.69 On 25 May 1908 Bourassa expounded the Nationaliste manifesto in a wide-ranging speech at the Monument National, giving greater detail to the reforms outlined above.70 Bourassa (in both seats) and Lavergne were elected, while the Conservatives increased their representation from six to thirteen seats.71 Somewhat ironically, Jean Prévost, who had been dismissed from Gouin’s cabinet, and was now a fierce critic of his former colleagues, joined them. The result greatly boosted Bourassa’s personal standing in Quebec. The centrepiece of their provincial platform was a commitment to colonization. Asselin’s influence was once again in evidence. He had come to the issue as secretary to Lomer Gouin. Colonization had

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been seen as a way of curbing the mass migration from Quebec to New England, which had gathered pace during the 1880s by encouraging the settlement of Quebec’s northern territories. French Canadians themselves promoted colonization as a means of encouraging the development of Quebec. It had already enjoyed limited success in Lac Saint-Jean, the Laurentians, outside Montreal, and in the Abitibi region. It was hoped that settlers would be able to sell the timber from their newly acquired land, allowing time before the land was ready to cultivate, and that settlers would themselves organize the construction of the necessary infrastructure: roads, bridges, churches, and schools. For Bourassa, it was a way of preserving Catholic communities and of extending French influence at a time when mass immigration was upsetting the linguistic balance of Canada. In addition, colonization schemes were viewed as key to the maintenance of a productive rural population. In comparative perspective this goal was not very different from that of the Young Scots’ support for land reform, although the threats came from different sources: developers wishing to exploit the natural resources in Quebec and developers in Scotland wishing to turn land over to the wealthy for recreation. Avner Offer notes that David Lloyd George held similar views about ensuring that the countryside remained productive.72 Olivar Asselin proposed that “only those properties should be sold to private individuals as would not be needed by the people.”73 The Nationalistes accused Quebec’s Liberal government of doing too little to promote colonization and too much to attract US forestry companies wanting to exploit the land commercially. The Nationalistes wanted more land reserved for colonization, yet the rents and licences from lumber companies were worth around $1 million a year to the Quebec government. Unsurprisingly the colonization campaign was unsuccessful.74 More generally, the Nationalistes sought the development of Quebec’s natural resources (hydro, mines, forestry) to benefit the people of Quebec rather than foreign companies. Ontario was frequently used by way of contrast. Jules Fournier pointed out that in Quebec there was no practice of public auction, so forests were sold at a price twenty times lower in Ontario, with the implication that the citizens of Quebec were being short-changed. Instead the Quebec provincial government was accused of selling to its political friends.75 Fournier argued that all sales of land should be by public auction, not only forests but also land for mining and hydro development.76

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The Nationalistes, however, wanted to prevent Quebec’s natural resources from falling into the hands of syndicates or trusts.77 The Nationalistes proved to be a small but relatively successful opposition. They were able to exert enough pressure for the Gouin government to modify its policies on the management of natural resource development.78 Linteau et al. suggest that the scrutiny exercised by the Nationalistes and their Conservative allies ensured that the years between 1908 and 1912 were the Gouin government’s most productive.79 This was the high water mark of Nationaliste involvement in provincial politics. In the provincial election of 1912 only Armand Lavergne ran; elected, he gave his support to the Conservative opposition. The Nationalistes’ gaze soon returned to the federal arena. Indeed, Bourassa and Lavergne frequently used their provincial platform to pronounce on federal questions. This was true not only of the naval question80 but also of schooling and immigration questions.

schooling and immigration: binationalism in the federal arena Concern with the fate of French communities outside Quebec, in Canada and in the United States, was a key feature of this period. Olivar Asselin and Jules Fournier shared an interest in the FrancoAmerican experience. Asselin had lived in the United States for several years and continued to correspond with Franco-American friends. Fournier, as journalist for Le Canada, spent two weeks in 1905 investigating the Franco-American communities in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. A series of articles followed, entitled Chez les Franco-Américains. His findings were cause for concern: Franco-Americans were to be found in inferior positions, and, more worrying still, the use of the French language was being lost at a rapid rate. Irish priests and their anglicizing efforts were identified as a particular threat to the survival of the French language in New England.81 This experience acted as a warning as to the possible fate of French communities outside Quebec in Canada. However, a more general fear lay behind their concern for French outside Quebec: the status of French in Quebec itself. In Bourassa’s words: If we let the false principle triumph that the unity of language is essential to unity in each of the English provinces, the anglicizers will have reason to further its application and to assert that

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national unity, and the maintenance of the French language is no more legitimate in the province of Quebec than in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia or New Brunswick.82 Throughout this period the status of the French language remained a key concern. In the period immediately before the First World War it once again took centre stage. The Nationalistes sought the binational development of Canada that would give equal status to both the French and English languages. However, two issues challenged this view and seemed to threaten the position of French in Canada: the restriction of French-language rights outside Quebec, especially in the field of schooling, and the influx of non-French-speaking immigrants to Canada. The Nationaliste platform was itself a response to these developments. Both issues increased in significance during this period. The increased importance of language as an issue for the Nationalistes during this period is reflected in a revision of the Ligue’s program, which appeared in Olivar Asselin’s English-language pamphlet of 1909.83 The first and third articles were unchanged, however in the light of the threats to the schooling rights of French-speaking minorities outside Quebec, article 2 now read: “In Canada’s internal relations, the safeguarding of Provincial Autonomy on the one hand and of the Constitutional Rights of minorities on the other.” And a new article was introduced specifically addressing immigration, “The settlement of the country with a sole view to the strengthening of Canadian nationhood.” The Nationalistes faced two key problems in championing the right to French schooling outside Quebec. First, the Canadian Constitution safeguarded separate schooling on the basis of religion, not language, as set out in Section 93 of the British North America Act. Ontario’s Regulation 17 confirmed that the target of Ontario’s combined Irish Catholic and Orange lobbies was language rather than religion was. Regardless, the Nationalistes persisted in espousing their belief that the Canadian Constitution was both morally and legally binational. Second, although the federal government had the power to intervene where the right to separate schools was infringed, it was reluctant to do so. In the West and Ontario strong pressure was exerted in favour of giving provinces unrestricted control over education, while Quebec remained resolutely in favour of ensuring that minority rights were adequately protected.84 Therefore,

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the federal government’s favoured position was to seek a compromise between provincial rights and minority rights, a strategy that ultimately proved unsatisfactory to both sides. The question of separate French Catholic schools outside Quebec was once again raised following the election of the Borden government. In accordance with an election promise, the Territory of Keewatin was passed to the Province of Manitoba without a guarantee of educational rights to the Catholic minority.85 And worse was to follow: Ontario’s Regulation 17 posed the most serious threat to Canadian unity. Ontario was not only Canada’s most populous province, but it had the fastest growing French-speaking population outside Quebec. By 1910 French speakers constituted almost 10 percent of the province’s population. In that year the Association canadienne-française d’Éducation d’Ontario had held a congress in which it advocated educational equality for French and English speakers. Both Ontario’s Orange and Irish Catholic constituencies felt threatened. In response to pressure from these otherwise opposed groups the Ontario legislature sought to curb the use of French in its schools. Adopted in June 1912 and amended in August 1913, the regulation imposed English as the sole language of instruction in elementary schools, while bilingual Catholic schools were placed under the authority of English Protestant inspectors. The study of French was limited to one hour a day. The Ontario government and its French-speaking population were deadlocked, each had opposing philosophies: to Franco-Ontarians, French was a language of instruction; to the Ontario government, it was merely a subject of study.86 The Nationalistes were united in their opposition to Regulation 17. Yet, there were clear differences in the way in which they viewed the struggle. At the Eucharistic Congress held in Montreal in 1910 Bourassa eloquently expressed his view that Catholicism and the French language were intimately linked in North America. Replying to the archbishop of Westminster, who had claimed that the future of Catholicism lay with the English language, Bourassa stated “that among three million Catholics, descendants of the first apostles of Christianity in America, the best safeguard of the Faith is the conservation of the idiom in which during three hundred years they have adorned Christ.”87 So for Bourassa language and faith were never separate; rather Providence had ordained that the French language would act as the guardian of the Catholic faith.88 Bourassa waged the fight for both the French language and the Catholic faith in the

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columns of Le Devoir. He also took his fight against the Regulation directly to Ontario, where he addressed several meetings. The views of Asselin and Fournier differed markedly. For them, this was a struggle, above all, about language and not religion – despite the attempt of the Catholic Church and its followers in Quebec to link the two. How could it, when Irish priests such as Father Fallon had been among the most ardent opponents of French schooling in Ontario? In his short tenure as president of Montreal’s Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste (SSJB), 1913–14, Asselin sought to mobilize the considerable influence of that rather conservative organization against the Regulation. He went so far as cancelling the Saint Jean Baptiste parade of 1913, so that the funds that would have been spent on the annual celebrations could go instead to a campaign fund, Le Sou de la pensée française. The fund had been set up to aid Francophones in Ontario specifically to ensure the survival of the Franco-Ontarian newspaper, Le Droit, which was established in 1913 to support school rights. The fund was relatively successful, raising a total of $15,000; although it was considerably less than the $50,000 usually spent on the parade it was sufficient to ensure the maintenance of the newspaper.89 His actions were nevertheless criticized by many of the Society’s more traditionalist members. In particular, the SSJB of Quebec City and the Société du parler français had opposed the cancellation of the parade. Asselin added fuel to the fire in an interview with Fournier, published in L’Action.90 He declared that the holiday was not a Catholic celebration, but a national one, and as such it should concern itself with the renewal of French culture. He went further, ridiculing past processions with their “ridiculous” historical floats and the choice of the lamb as a national symbol. He also defended the participation of the French Canadian poet Gonzalve Desaulniers, whom the Church had accused of freemasonry. “Stupid right thinkers” had reduced the collection raised.91 Asselin’s comments in that interview led to his eventual resignation as president of the SSJB. However he refuted accusations that his comments were anti-clerical. He sought to distinguish between language and religion. While recognizing that “we take Catholicism as one of the essential features of French Canadian national character” (note that he counts it as only one among other essential traits), he asked Is it necessary to point out that it is French, not Catholicism that was attacked today in Ontario; that Catholic schools where

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French is not taught are well treated by the State, and by Orangeism; consequently, with whatever joy we have served the cause of Catholic education, we have defended first and foremost French education?92 Therefore, for Asselin, the struggle in Ontario was, above all, about the preservation of French culture, or “la pensée française,” outside Quebec. It was not until 1927 that the Regulation was finally repealed.93 However, by 1916 the intensity of the struggle had begun to subside. In that year Canada’s Privy Council ruled that Regulation 17 was within the prerogative of the Ontario government, although it condemned the province’s handling of the Ottawa School Board, the scene of the bitterest conflict. In the same year, Pope Benedict XV issued a papal letter urging moderation.94 Yet Canada was a country divided at the outbreak of war in 1914. The failure to remedy this dispute and its protraction into wartime had a profound effect on the nationalism that emerged in the 1920s. The Nationalistes were increasingly concerned that the waves of non-French-speaking immigrants entering Canada were upsetting Canada’s delicate linguistic balance. In its scale immigration in the period immediately before the First World War was unprecedented: a rate that has never been surpassed. In 1901 there were 49,000 immigrants; in 1905, 146,000, and in the peak year of 1913, 402,000.95 Yet it was not the rate so much as the composition of the immigrants that concerned the Nationalistes: between 1901 and 1911 only 30,000 of some 1,500,000 were French-speaking. Indeed, it was only the continuing high birth rate of French Canadians that ensured that its proportion of the population did not fall below the 1867 figure of one-third.96 The influx of non-Francophone immigrants was viewed as a potential threat to the political status of French Canadians in Canada, since it would mean the creation of more non-French Canadian deputies to the House of Commons, and thereby imply a relative decline in the influence of French Canadians within Confederation.97 The Nationalistes did not oppose the immigration of settlers from the British Isles per se (although the screening measures were questioned); however, they were concerned that the efforts of the Canadian authorities were concentrated on attracting immigration from Eastern Europe and the United States at the expense of Belgium and France:

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The French and the Belgian, with their thrifty habits, their respect for law and order, their intimate knowledge of home industries and concentrated farming, their fair experience of parliamentary government, their ethnic kinship to the pioneer race of Canada [French Canadians], are classes of settlers for whom we should have made a stronger bid. They are the pick and flower of European peasantry.98 The implication was that these French-speaking peasants were everything that East Europeans were not. Moreover, there was a suggestion that the exclusion of French-speaking immigrants was deliberate. The Nationalistes asked why the same efforts made to recruit immigrants from the British Isles were not made to recruit individuals from France and Belgium. In response, Rodolphe Lemieux, the minister responsible had stated that the French simply did not emigrate. Fournier countered that in 1904 92,000 people had left France for destinations largely outside the French colonies, therefore posing the question, why not Canada?99 Following his failure to win the Saint Jacques riding in the 1911 election Olivar Asselin was rewarded for his electoral efforts with a federal mission to investigate the question of French and Belgian emigration. In a soberly written report, Asselin asked why the Canadian government spent $200,000 and employed hundreds of immigration agents to attract emigrants in Britain, while it allocated only $13,000 and employed only three agents in France and Belgium.100 He made a number of recommendations on how potential immigrants could be attracted. However, little attention was given to the opposition by the Catholic establishment in Quebec to immigrants from Belgium and France, since their exposure to anti-Catholic doctrines in their home countries posed a threat to the Catholic order in Quebec. The Nationalistes could be quite disparaging in their characterization of East European immigrants, particularly Jews. This will be examined more fully in the next chapter. However Asselin offered this tempered analysis: “The Galician, the Doukhobor, the Pole and Muscovite are not more corrupt than we are. Their intentions may be more pure than ours, and less selfish their deeds. But they cannot deny that their conditions under which they have grown up have not fitted them for the practice of citizenship …”101 Exactly the opposite problem was presented by large numbers of US immigrants. How attached would they become to a country that had the same

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language, the same social life, and the same economic interests as the United States?102 The Nationalistes were therefore adamant that French and British Canadians should be in the vanguard of settlement in the West, “the nucleus of the new country should be obtained from the older provinces.” Citizens of Canada’s existing provinces, Quebec and Ontario, should provide the core of settlers in Western Canada. This would ensure the development of Canadian nationhood, a sense of which was absent in immigrants from Eastern Europe or the United States, and perhaps it would also preserve the balance between Canada’s two European founding peoples.103 Olivar Asselin envisioned a binational development of the West: You could draw hundreds of thousands of settlers from both Ontario and Quebec tomorrow without weakening these provinces. The birth rate would increase. European or American settlers would fill in the gaps, soon to become by sheer virtue of environment, thoroughly identified with Canadian life. And all over Canada a strong nation would grow up, with one love, one thought, one purpose. In the West a minority of native-born citizens could rule a majority of foreigners differing between themselves on all that goes to make a bond of national union.104 If bination-building was to be achieved, it was necessary that a balance between French and English speakers be maintained to ensure that immigrants were settled in a bicultural environment. In 1901 it had been suggested to Asselin that he use his position as a journalist at Le Journal to support the division of the North-Western Territories to create a French- and an English-speaking province: “to promote the division of the North-Western Territories into two provinces including a French one, that of Saskatchewan. We must demand a division from east to west instead of north to south that would isolate the French Canadian colonies, the districts of Edmonton and Prince Albert.”105 However, Bourassa acknowledged the difficulties in legislating a French character for the North-Western Territories when French speakers made up only 4 percent of its population. Nevertheless, he noted that English-speakers, at 47 percent of the population, were also in a minority and that the founders of these provinces had a higher obligation: it is their duty to the decedents of those French pioneers who were the first to bring civilization to those western countries as

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well as the first to plant it on the shores of the St Lawrence, to join hands with the English speaking people in the resolve to unite these two races together so as to make that country great, a British country for as long as possible; but at the same time to make it so far as traditions are concerned, an Anglo-French country …106 Therefore, Bourassa made it quite clear that legislators had a responsibility not to sheer numbers, but to ensuring the binational character of Canada.

c o n c l u s i o n : a sw i t z e r l a n d o f t h e n o rt h ? in search of consociation In 1912 the Province of Quebec almost doubled in territorial size with the addition of Ungava, which extended its northern boundary to the Hudson strait.107 However despite the fact that Quebec grew territorially, there was a sense that its political influence within Confederation was in decline, that it was becoming politically isolated. The resulting Canadian federation was taking on a more English (and multi-ethnic) hue. In 1867 French was in the majority in one province out of four; by 1914, the close of the period covered in this book, it was in the majority in one province out of nine. Worse, a check had been imposed on the effective growth of Frenchspeaking communities outside Quebec: the Manitoba schools question in the 1890s, the Autonomy Bills in 1905, the denial of minority rights to Keewatin in 1911, and, most notorious of all, Ontario’s Regulation 17 were testimony to this trend. Moreover, the federal elections of 1911 and 1917 reflected a political divergence between Quebec and the rest-of-Canada. In 1911 there had, in effect, been two parallel campaigns operating in which different personalities and policies featured. In 1917 a single issue – conscription – dominated, and it divided French and English Canadians. In both elections Francophone Quebec was on the losing side. Outside Quebec, this period was clearly marked by a rejection of consociationalism at the provincial level, the very thing that the Nationalistes advocated: dualism was ended in Manitoba, it was denied in the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and its emergence in Ontario was quickly extinguished. Immigration had played a key role here by altering the composition of the populations of these provinces, ending a commitment to dualism. In Manitoba,

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for example, the result was that the practice of consociationalism became expendable, and provincial financing of French Catholic schools ceased.108 Yet it would be unfair to characterize this period as one entirely devoid of consociation. At the federal level Canada’s two leading political parties – Conservative and Liberal – were the chief means through which accommodation took place. For example, Laurier’s tenure as the first post-Confederation French Canadian Liberal leader established a trend that has continued to the present: thereafter there has been an effective rotation between French and English-speaking leaders of the Liberal Party. Nevertheless, these accommodating mechanisms would be far from clear to a Canadian political observer in the years leading up to and during the First World War: Canada at the outbreak of the First World War was politically polarized as never before along its familiar French-English faultline. This questioned the ability of these parties, and of the political structure more generally, to effectively accommodate French Canadians. Nationalistes contested elections at all levels of government: federal, provincial, and municipal.109 Bourassa and Lavergne served as both members of the Canadian House of Commons and Quebec’s Legislative Assembly. Olivar Asselin contested both federal and provincial elections. Jules Fournier was briefly a Montreal city councillor. However, Bourassa in particular found the wider Canadian stage more appealing. This was entirely in keeping with his grand binational vision. It was there, rather than in Quebec’s Legislative Assembly, that the interests of French Canadians within the wider Confederation had to be fought for and won. Other nationalists before, during, and after this period restricted their attention to the provincial arena. The Nationalistes did not. Despite the setbacks that his vision experienced Bourassa (and the Nationalistes) remained committed to his (and their) ideal of Canada.110 While Bourassa never wavered in his adherence to Canada, a note of frustration is apparent at the end of this period: “The history of Canada from the conquest until the conclusion of the federal compact is the story of our triumphs by persistent and constant struggle; the history of Confederation is the regrettable series of our forfeitures and our defeats through false conciliation.”111 He cited a range of instances where the standing of French Canadians was demoted outside Quebec: the suppression of Catholic schools in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick in the 1870s; Manitoba’s suppression of separate schools and the

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official use of French in 1890; the NorthWestern Territories following suit in 1892 (sanctioned with the creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905), and Keewatin in 1911. An obvious obstacle to the realization of their vision was the refusal by English-speaking Canadians to contemplate accommodation with the numerically inferior minority. The large influx of recent immigrants from the British Isles regarded such measures of accommodation as contrary to British majoritarian ideals.112 They were imbued with a jingoistic imperial ideology, which stressed the superiority of the Protestant British “race,” and they were unsympathetic to calls for accommodation with the Catholic French minority.113 In Olivar Asselin’s words, this was “the ridiculous fear of the French bogey.”114 Bourassa referred to the view frequently expressed among British Canadians: “This is an English country. The English language is the language of the British Empire.”115 This was an exaggerated imperial Britishness, the expression of an “imperial ethnicity,” one distinct from the expression of Britishness at home: a means by which expatriates and British-origin Canadians continued to identify themselves as British, with their overriding loyalty to the Empire rather than to Canada.116 Yet there was also a failure on the part of the Nationalistes to comprehend that this espousal of a British imperial identity by British Canadians was itself a form of national identity: “what Bourassa failed to perceive was that the sentiment which he called imperialism was another expression of Canadianism, different from his own, but still nationalism.”117 The Nationalistes can perhaps be forgiven for this oversight, given that this “Canadianism” was thoroughly enmeshed in and, at the same time, subordinate to a sense of Britishness. The Nationalistes were willing and able to compromise. In the main, British Canadians were not. They were unwilling to countenance partnership, let alone tolerate political rights to ensure viable French-speaking communities outside Quebec. However, the existence of a tolerant majority is essential in order to secure a loyal minority.118 Nevertheless, what is perhaps most remarkable about the Nationalistes’ liberal nationalist vision is that it was a positive response to a series of events that seemed to undermine both the position of Canada as a self-governing dominion within the Empire at the imperial level and the status of French Canadians within Canada at the federal level. Faced with the existential threats posed by schooling and immigration in particular, the Nationalistes sought ostensibly liberal

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measures as a way of accommodating difference. These measures were “ostensibly liberal” since rights were conferred on communities rather than individuals.119 In part this was a reflection of the distinctive way in which French- and English-speaking communities were accommodated in Quebec. Comparative investigation provided similar models, and the belief that a Switzerland of the north was possible. In other words, a state need not be homogeneous in order to be successful. The Nationalistes argued for a reciprocal relationship to be established between the Canadian state and its British and French nationalities. While the federal state had to maintain Canada’s binational character, French Canadians had an obligation to extend their loyalty beyond Quebec to the rest-of-Canada, and British Canadians had to acknowledge that their first loyalty was to Canada, and not to the Empire. To accommodate these distinct communities on something like an equal basis the Canadian federation had to be avowedly consociational.120

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7 Liberalism and the Politics of Civil Society

This chapter places a particular emphasis on the character of the nationalism exhibited by the Young Scots and Nationalistes, determining the extent to which it was “liberal.” It does so by locating the nationalists within their distinctive civil societies.1 The two components of civil society, established in the first chapter, are elaborated here: the possession of self-regulating organizations and a normative commitment to tolerance. The importance of distinctively Scottish and Francophone Quebec institutions is suggested by the biographies of the Young Scots and Nationalistes themselves. The chapter reflects on the influence of key institutions, namely, the Church, the education and legal systems, local government, business, and the press, and on the nationalists’ views of these institutions before examining their responses to demands for inclusion from labour, women, and recent immigrants, as well as the degree to which their civil societies were able to accommodate these demands. Through the Young Scots’ and Nationalistes’ engagement with each of these institutions and groups a clearer picture of their liberalism emerges. Throughout this period, the ideological battle between the Catholic Church and liberalism in Quebec was particularly pronounced; accordingly greater attention is devoted to examining civil society there.

church The Churches in Scotland and Quebec – institutions pivotal to an understanding of these civil societies and to the nationalists under study – are examined first. As chapter 2 detailed, these institutions

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and their relationship to liberalism were key to shaping the character of these civil societies. Ian MacLeod argues that “Presbyterianism was the single greatest driving force of nineteenth-century Scottish Liberalism, playing little direct role in political life, but providing a silent and powerful impulse towards democracy.”2 Its influence continued to be felt at turn of the century. Even following the institution of popularly elected civil authorities such as school boards, parish councils, town councils, and county councils, Presbyterian churches continued to exercise influence. Therefore, in the early part of the twentieth century, social salvation continued to be linked to religious salvation to a large extent.3 The Young Scots exemplified this. A preponderance of early YSS members were members of the United Free Church (UFC), rather than the established Church of Scotland, a reflection of the close ties between the Liberal Party and religious nonconformity. The UFC was formed in 1900, the result of a merger of the Free Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church. Young Scots’ affiliation took a variety of forms: James Barr was a fully ordained minister, and J.M. Hogge an assistant minister; Hector MacPherson championed its cause in the press; J.W. Gulland was a UFC representative on the Edinburgh School Board; and D. MacGregor Mitchell, secretary of Aberdeen YSS, was a church elder. Their religiosity took a variety of forms. In 1904 Young Scots were involved in celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of the birth of John Knox, leader of the Scottish Reformation, and credited with bringing Calvinism to Scotland. Yet despite their Protestantism, Young Scots overwhelmingly supported Home Rule for predominantly Catholic Ireland. Their wrath was often vented on Sir Edward Carson, leader of the Ulster Protestants.4 They championed the disestablishment of Scotland’s established Church, the Church of Scotland, an issue that continued to be a rallying point for Scottish Liberals. While the issue never ignited the strength of feeling that it did among Welsh liberals, in 1904 a significant proportion of the YSS’s own journal, The Young Scot, was devoted to the “Scottish Church Case.” Yet it began to fade as an issue through this period: it was one of “Scotland’s legislative needs” in the third edition of the Young Scots Handbook in 1908 but was absent in the following two editions in 1910 and 1911, supporting Christopher Harvie’s contention that “the disestablishment crisis fizzled out in the toils of litigation which accompanied the creation of the United Free Church

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in 1900.”5 Moreover, the UFC reunited with the Church of Scotland in the 1920s. Among the Young Scots, liberalism and Protestantism were viewed as mutually reinforcing. Two anecdotal pieces of evidence illustrate this. Hector MacPherson, the Young Scots’ mentor and editor of the Edinburgh Evening News, wrote several short books and pamphlets. The topics chosen oscillated between Protestantism and Liberalism, suggesting a perceived interconnection between the two. In addition to works on Gladstone (1892), Thomas Carlyle (1896), Adam Smith (1899), and Herbert Spencer (1900), several addressed religious questions, particularly disestablishment: Scotland’s Battles for Spiritual Independence (1905), Scotland’s Latest Battle for Freedom (1906), Knox Club: a new protestant movement (1909), the Scottish Church Crisis (n.d.), and Scotland’s Debt to Protestantism (1912). He also wrote two unflattering accounts of Catholicism: Jesuits in History (1914) and The Vatican and the War (1916/17). In addition, it was venues with a Protestant religious affiliation that were frequently chosen for the Young Scots annual conference: the Protestant Institute Hall, Edinburgh, in 1902–03 and the Christian Institute, Glasgow, in 1913. Moreover, religion had a diffuse influence on the Young Scots. It fostered a sense of moral duty. This can be seen in their roles as campaigning journalists and social investigators, and in the causes that they championed. It helps explain the devotion of many to the causes of temperance, pacifism, anti-gambling legislation, and the disestablishment of the Church of Scotland, but also to social reform more generally. J.M. Hogge, John Gulland, and John Peacock were involved in church-related social work. Rather than enter the ministry, Hogge opted to undertake work as a social investigator for Joseph and Seebohm Rowantree and Arthur Sherwell in York, England.6 This work led to him contributing articles and pamphlets, often with a moral flavour, to various journals and organizations, such as The Facts of Gambling and Licensing in Scandinavia (with Alexander MacCallum Scott)7 for the Temperance Legislation League. This was a vocation Hogge took seriously. MacCallum Scott testified to Hogge’s dedication as a Liberal MP: “Hogge is a hard worker and a regular and systematic worker. He slaves away at his correspondence in the library, and is very systematic about it.”8 Religion mattered to the Young Scots. In particular, the way in which it intertwined with liberalism is crucial to an understanding of their politics.

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The Catholic Church in Quebec similarly profoundly influenced the Nationalistes. A religious morality was exhibited through many of the causes they championed. Indeed, Levitt suggests that the Nationalistes’ strong religious convictions were apparent in their adoption of a social program that included reform of the education system and labour legislation.9 They shared with the Young Scots support for temperance. In 1898 a plebiscite was held throughout Canada on prohibition. Yet while the Catholic clergy in Quebec generally supported moderation they refused to join their Protestant counterparts – Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians – in support of total abstinence. Perhaps as a result Quebec, and more generally areas with a French and Catholic majority, was the only province to reject prohibition. Faced with a potentially divisive issue Laurier used the low turnout to halt federal temperance legislation.10 Yet the Nationalistes differed considerably on the role of the Catholic Church in civil society. Bourassa, Héroux, and Lavergne were less inclined to challenge the Church, and wanted its powerful position maintained. Bourassa, whom Laurier had labelled “le Castor rouge,” became increasingly more Castor than rouge. He accorded the Church a privileged role in society – “[I]f there is a ruling class here, it is the clergy”11 – and was willing to forgive its more questionable actions: We can discuss the attitude of the clergy in some difficult circumstances: the wars of the Empire, the rebellion of 1837; but unless you ignore our history, or read it in a sectarian way or as a bystander, one cannot deny that the role of the clergy was at once firm, conciliatory, informed, and deeply patriotic.12 In contrast, Olivar Asselin and Jules Fournier viewed the Catholic Church as a moral guide, properly restricted to the conduct of purely religious and moral matters. Both took exception to the Church’s political pronouncements. Jules Fournier took the view that while the Church had served Quebec well in the past, it was proving unable to meet the demands of the present. The following excerpt is worth quoting at length: We believe, we French Canadians, that the role of the Catholic clergy in Canada, since the early days of the colony and especially after the cession of the country to England [sic], was an

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admirable role. We do not pretend that all priests are absolutely flawless. We have no difficulty admitting that facing new conditions in which our people have been found for 40 years, the clergy is perhaps too stuck to methods that would hitherto have been successful, but they are not suitable to the demands of a new era. We are even ready to admit that maybe there was not the necessary foresight, or at least the flexibility necessary, to follow universal progress and enable us to follow it ourselves. But what we argue is that, despite all this, it is still the one out of all our social institutions that shows the most dedication, patriotism, and selflessness. And finally we believe that no social institution has ever done as much for a people than our clergy has done for us.13 This passage encapsulates well an apparent contradiction found in Fournier and Asselin; these were committed Catholics who were nevertheless critical of the Church. They firmly believed that the Church still deserved French Canadians’ respect and support, yet this support should not be uncritical. Yvan Lamonde aptly describes Olivar Asselin as “le catholique anticlérical.”14 Asselin, who had once contemplated entering the priesthood, confided to his brother Raoul, who was himself training for the priesthood: For ten years I was in contact with Catholics, Protestants, free thinkers; it is perhaps among the latter that I found the most charity and least self-righteousness; I have found in no other place more hypocrisy and more bitterness than among clerics trained in Rome at the Italian school: they invariably display a quiet, but ferocious vengeance.15 Asselin’s own experiences informed his view of the Church. He grew increasingly frustrated with the actions taken by the Church, not least with the criticisms he received when, as president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste of Montreal, he cancelled the 1913 Saint-Jean-Baptiste parade so that funds could instead go to support Franco-Ontarians struggling against Regulation 17. Following this episode he distinguished clearly between national interests and religious interests, declaring that they were not necessarily the same:

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the Société necessarily being above all national, I did not want to say and I do not see how one could understand me as saying, that I wanted to say that it should not take religious interest into account – I simply meant to say, to counter proponents of a certain French Catholic thought – that for any national Catholic or non-Catholic society there are issues where the religious interest is not necessarily involved, and where they always want to include it.16 In 1914 his outburst was directed against the entry of Quebec bishops on the political stage to express their views in support of Canada’s participation in the First World War, despite Asselin’s own support for the war effort to liberate France. Thus, a contrasting picture emerges of the positions of the Churches in Scotland and Quebec. As described in chapter 2, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland had undergone something of an “institutional metamorphosis,”17 both in its institutional appearance and increasingly in its social philosophy; it had lost its nearmonopoly position. Among adherents to the UFC a social gospel was gaining popularity. Young Scots reflected these changes through their association with the UFC and their advocacy of social reform. In Francophone Quebec, the Catholic Church remained both institutionally and socially dominant. It increased efforts to maintain its religious monopoly against what it perceived as the growing threats from secularism and materialism. In response, it sought to establish associations and institutions to cover every conceivable facet of social life. Yet, as the following sections will demonstrate, its dominance was not total: a plurality of opinion existed both inside and outside the Church. The Nationalistes reflected this: they were divided on the appropriate place for the Catholic Church in Quebec’s civil society. Indeed, descriptions of these nationalists as “castor rouge” (Bourassa) and “catholique anticlérical” (Asselin) suggest they were individually conflicted. These tensions and divisions are apparent in their views on education, law, local government, business, and the press, and in their responses to demands from women, labour, and immigrants. Therefore, in different ways both sets of nationalists reflected the changing place of the Church in their civil societies, and they exhibited religious influences in their ostensibly moral projects.

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education and schooling Religion played an important role in the development of the distinct systems of schooling in Scotland and Francophone Quebec. These educational institutions played a key role within these civil societies and shaped the Young Scots and Nationalistes. In the early twentieth century both were actively engaged in debates over their reform. During the nineteenth century there was a general withdrawal by the established Church of Scotland from civil functions, most notably its withdrawal from the management of poor relief in 1845 and, later, from schooling, the latter prompted by the introduction of a state system of education in 1872. The delay in the introduction of a state system of education can, however, be attributed to disagreements among the various Presbyterian churches, most notably the outright opposition of the Church of Scotland, which feared that the loss of its schools would finally end its formal established position.18 Nevertheless, the introduction of state schooling marked a victory for religious and particularly evangelical interests and should not be seen simply as part of a general process of secularization. Scotland’s religious pluralism proved decisive: the Free, United Presbyterian, and Catholic Churches were eager to wrest control of parish schools away from the established Church of Scotland. This was accomplished through the creation of a popularly controlled system of administration, which allowed each denomination to compete through the ballot box for control of school boards. In the short term, religious control of education was preserved: school boards continued to provide a solidly Presbyterian form of religious education despite its denominationally balanced membership. But in the longer term the new structure allowed for the election of Labour candidates and other “progressives,” with the result that there was shift away from its evangelical origins to questions of social justice, particularly in urban areas. This secularizing trend was, therefore, accomplished without the sudden removal of the clergy from school board management.19 School boards became a key feature of Scotland’s civil society, and Young Scots were active members: J.W. Gulland represented the UFC on the Edinburgh School Board, while the “progressive-leaning” James Barr, a UFC minister, chose to sit as an independent member on the Glasgow School Board.20 Walter Humes has commented: “[T]he separate institutional apparatus for Scotland tends to disguise the extent to which educational

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thinking has been shaped by a climate of ideas which is by no means peculiarly Scottish.”21 This is true. Yet the fundamental fact is that distinctively Scottish educational institutions administered the changes – despite the fact that the London-based Scotch Education Department was accused of being out of touch with the opinion of educators in Scotland and the focus of much scorn from the Young Scots. In addition, throughout the nineteenth century, educational changes were at the behest of elements within Scottish civil society itself.22 Young Scots were overwhelmingly educated in Scotland, though this education differed markedly. The myth of the “lad o’ pairts,”23 the popular notion that the Scottish education system was sufficiently meritocratic to allow young men to advance irrespective of their economic means, was evident in the careers of John Gulland, YSS secretary (1903–06), and the founding Young Scot James Myles Hogge. Gulland entered Heriot’s Hospital School in Edinburgh in open competition, was dux of the school, and secured a bursary to study law at the University of Edinburgh.24 Hogge (also a dux) was educated at the Church of Scotland Normal School in Edinburgh, and he was employed as a pupil teacher before entering Moray House Training College. He then received bursaries to pursue an undergraduate degree at the University of Edinburgh and to study theology at New College, Edinburgh.25 Yet such meritocracy should not be overstated, privilege continued to matter. Gulland’s namesake, John William Gulland, president of the YSS (1905–06) and Liberal MP (1906–18), was the son of one Edinburgh’s leading corn merchants and a city magistrate. He was educated at the Royal High School and Edinburgh University without the need of external assistance.26 The ancient universities of Scotland – Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St Andrew’s – were characterized by what George Davie famously described as a “democratic intellect.”27 This was a distinctively nineteenth-century Scottish “collectivist” principle that held that “through public and not private provision, university education should be made equally accessible to all social classes and areas of the country and also to a proportion of the population that was high relative to the prevailing standard in England.”28 Several Young Scots received a university education from one of Scotland’s four ancient universities, as well as from colleges offering technical education, such as Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt College. More generally, Scottish universities had found success at supplying the British Empire with a disproportionately large number of professionals, in particular

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doctors and engineers. Indeed, as Lindsay Paterson argues, university curriculum changes in the late nineteenth century can be interpreted as measures introduced in order to maintain the career route of the Scottish middle class within the British Empire, and they were not the result of Anglicization, as suggested by Davie. Therefore, control of university education rested with the Scottish middle class through bodies such as the local governing bodies of the universities.29 Despite its achievements, the Young Scots were particularly concerned about the future of Scottish education, its ability to remain distinctive, and its ability to respond effectively to changing circumstances. The Imperial Parliament was accused of being deficient in this regard. The YSS frequently complained that Scottish legislation was often being tagged on to English legislation, with little regard to Scotland’s distinctiveness. Education legislation was no exception. Government neglect was also an issue. For example, Young Scots bemoaned that the British government had refused to grant £100,000 to the Scottish teachers’ pension scheme: “It is the same old story of the neglect and starvation of Scotland under our centralized system of government.”30 The Scotch Education Department, based in London, was accused of being out of touch with Scottish educators. And Young Scots took the administration of Scottish education seriously, forming an “Education Committee” to address the effect of government centralization on schools, the adequacy of existing bursaries, and the standard of elementary education and to seek suggestions for reform at the local level and within the Scotch Education Department.31 James Barr, a Young Scot and Glasgow School Board member, supported measures to introduce school meals for “necessitous children” and for the introduction of free schoolbooks.32 Young Scots presented the problem and the solution: “Scottish education has suffered at different times from neglect, mismanagement and delay at the hands of the Imperial Parliament and Government. Under a Scottish Parliament and a Scottish Ministry its future will be worthy of its past.”33 In Quebec, Francophone schooling and education remained under the direct control of the Catholic Church. Laval University and the classical colleges, which constituted secondary education in Francophone Quebec, were religious institutions. Quebec was distinctive in Canada with primary education under the direction of a Catholic Committee dominated by priests and bishops, rather than the provincial government.34 In Montreal schooling was

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administered by both Catholic and Protestant school boards. During this period, the future role of the Church in the field of education was much debated among the Nationalistes and within Quebec’s civil society more generally. A provincial Ministry of Education had briefly existed between 1867 and 1875; however, the Catholic Church jealously guarded its control over education and opposed any attempt at re-establishing what it regarded as a secular authority.35 In 1898, the incoming Liberal administration under Félix-Gabriel Marchand was committed to the establishment of a Department of Public Instruction, together with a series of educational reforms that the Department would be responsible for, including the selection of teaching materials, the certification of teachers, and responsibility for the appointment of school inspectors. However, it took the intervention of the Canadian prime minister to force the provincial government to back down on the establishment of a Ministry of Education. Laurier was determined to avoid conflict with the Church; in addition, he needed the support of Quebec’s Catholic clergy for his compromise solution to the Manitoba Schools question.36 The opposition of the Catholic Church to this measure, and the more radical policy of compulsory state education, resemble the Church of Scotland’s fear of losing its established position. The twenty-one collèges classiques were established by the Catholic Church between 1665 and 1911, originally set up to train boys for the priesthood. However, during this period their aim was more general, constituting the basis of Catholic secondary education in Quebec.37 Olivar Asselin, Jules Fournier, Omer Héroux, and Armand Lavergne had attended classical colleges or Catholic seminaries. Both Asselin and Fournier had done so despite their relatively humble origins; yet, their attendance was the exception rather than the rule. The collèges classiques were private institutions dependent on fees, and they attracted a relatively small proportion of the eligible population. Fournier’s attendance at the Collège de Valleyfield, where Abbé Lionel Groulx was one of his teachers, had been secured with the financial aid of his local parish priest and teachers. Olivar Asselin and his older brother Raoul, the first generation of Asselins to enter higher education, had attended the Séminaire de Rimouski at the cost of $60 and $90, respectively (Olivar’s cost was reduced since he was the second member of his family attending).38 However, the family’s financial hardship meant that Olivar Asselin failed to

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finish his studies. Indeed the varying quality of classical college education was often because of a lack of financial resources available to individual colleges, for example the Séminaire de Rimouski experienced a shortfall in its income between 1881 and 1903.39 Only Armand Lavergne attended university: he studied law at Université Laval. At this time Quebec had three private universities. Two were English-speaking and Protestant: McGill, founded in 1821, and Bishop’s College, founded in 1845; the French Catholic Université Laval, located in Ste-Foy, a suburb of Quebec City, was the third, founded in 1852, with an affiliate Université Laval à Montréal, founded in 1876. This fact alone suggests that Quebec’s Anglophone minority was better represented in tertiary education than its Francophone majority. Indeed, the difference in endowment funds between McGill and Laval was substantial: while the latter’s was in the thousands of dollars the former’s was in the millions.40 In terms of its student body, Laval was improving its position at a faster rate than its English counterparts: between 1896 and 1913 while attendance at the English universities increased by 83 percent (from 952 to 1,762), Laval’s attendance increased by 875 percent (from 281 to 2,260).41 Linteau et al. caution that, while these figures suggest that the educational system was making rapid progress, the reality was very different: it was a fragmented system, lacking coordination and containing flagrant inequalities.42 Yet, while the creation of a Ministry of Education had proved ill-fated, reform continued to be implemented in other areas. This was particularly the case under the administration of Lomer Gouin, a supporter of a Ministry of Public Instruction and Asselin’s former employer. The Nationalistes’ views on education were rather cautious, particularly as they concerned the role of the Church: they largely sought reform while maintaining the Church’s position.43 In this regard they were not as overtly progressive as those of Godfroy Langlois and the Ligue d’enseignement, a citizens’ group composed of politicians, journalists, and teachers, whose advocacy of compulsory state education set them at odds with both the Catholic Church and the Liberal Party establishment in Quebec.44 Although the Nationalistes were united in their opposition to a secular schooling system, they were divided on the role the state should play. Bourassa, Asselin, and Héroux supported increasing teachers’ salaries, which remained below the average, making it difficult to attract suitable applicants. Bourassa believed that the necessary resources should be

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raised through additional local taxes, and he wanted to avoid giving the state any role in education.45 In contrast, Asselin sought financial support from the provincial government: “From top to bottom, from root to branch, educational progress … is hindered by lack of money … If you get five millions out of the public domain instead of one, you will facilitate the solution of the school question.”46 Moreover, Asselin publicly endorsed compulsory education, arguing that it was entirely consistent with Catholic doctrine.47 Fournier was also a supporter, although he chose not to state his views publicly.48 In contrast, Bourassa opposed mass education. He believed that education should be geared not only to individuals’ talent but also to their position in society.49 It was not until 1943 that the government instituted compulsory education for children under fourteen. The Nationalistes were convinced that some educational reform was required in order to provide French Canadians with a more practical education. Fournier, in particular, was in no doubt that the education system had to reflect the needs of Quebec’s industrializing economy: “If the people here want finally want to leave their rut, take its share of wealth and influence, and above all achieve numerical growth, which alone can save them, they must improve their education system.”50 This was a position shared by leading Liberal politicians. who, with their project of “economic conquest through knowledge,” sought to win a place for Francophones alongside Anglophones in the world of industry and business.51 Fournier argued that the failure of agriculture to progress in Quebec was a consequence of the lack of public instruction, citing as evidence the fact that while Quebec had only one newspaper dedicated to agriculture Ontario had fifty.52 In this regard, Fournier and Asselin supported the incremental measures adopted by the Gouin administration to develop vocational education: technical colleges were established in Montreal and Quebec City, outside the control of the Church.53 In addition, the École polytechnique (1905), the École d’architecture (1906), and the École des Hautes Études commerciales (1907) were established to provide training in engineering, architecture, and business respectively. Again, these were ostensibly secular institutions. Asselin and Le Nationaliste welcomed their introduction, and they were joined by enlightened members of the clergy, such as the Dominican Charles Gonthier and Abbés Louis Collin and Philippe Perrier, who were willing to oppose their Jesuit colleagues’ resistance to these measures. Bourassa was opposed to the absence of religious

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instruction in these schools. He later labelled the École des Hautes Études commerciales “un école sans Dieu” and insisted that its curriculum include religious instruction: moral instruction was as important as the transmission of precise knowledge.54 For the Nationalistes the overriding concern was the protection of the French language itself. Fournier expressed frustration with those who seemed to put education reform above all else, ignoring the threats to the French language outside Quebec and suggesting that questions on how French Canadians should exist are less important than whether they would exist at all. French Canadians had to choose their battles carefully; education reform was a minor concern compared with the rights of French Canadians in the West, Ontario, and New England. Therefore, what had to come first was “la survivance de la race.”55 This point illustrates well the degree to which the political choices made by the Nationalistes were not simply responses to debates within Quebec’s civil society but also responses to external threats to the French language. In this instance nationalism took precedence over liberalism despite the sympathy for educational reform shared by Asselin and Fournier. Nevertheless, the Gouin administration had given a new impetus to educational reform during this period. By 1912 provincial government spending on education had reached $1.3 million, double the figure for 1908, this amounted to 68 cents per capita, compared with 77 cents in Ontario. Both provinces allocated around 19 percent of their budget for education.56 Ruby Heap suggests that “[I]n the end, it is the forces of tradition, in the educational field at least, which appeared to be losing ground at the beginning of the twentieth century.”57 She argues that educational reform was as much a victory for moderate forces within the episcopate as within the Liberal Party. Leading Liberal politicians sought an accommodation with the Church, and marginalized radical Liberals in the process, while bishops, aware of their considerable support within the urban bourgeoisie, declared themselves the friends of progress so long as it did not undermine their authority. The Church was reassured by the Liberal Party’s maintenance of and respect for the established social order. The Nationalistes themselves reflected this political and ecclesiastical moderation; they, too, sought an accommodation between liberalism and Catholicism. Both the Nationalistes and Young Scots were themselves the products of the schooling systems in Quebec and Scotland. These were

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very different systems. While in Scotland its egalitarianism has been overstated (obscuring inequalities based on class, sex, and region), something of this ethos is apparent in the biographies of the Young Scots. In contrast, Francophone (and Catholic) schooling was, in the words of Linteau et al., a “jumble of structures and programs”58 – yet its reform had been initiated. It nevertheless continued to produce an educationally privileged elite. The systems of schooling in Scotland and Quebec, therefore, had an impact on the form that civil society took in these different contexts: it was more elite-driven in Quebec than in Scotland. Crucially, educational reform was the result of debate within the civil societies of Scotland and Quebec rather than resulting from disputes between Scotland and England or between French Canadians and English Canadians.59 Both sets of nationalists reflected the character of their civil societies in their advocacy of reform. For the YSS, reform was essential not only to ensure the distinctiveness of Scottish schooling but also to ensure that it adequately responded to changing social needs. The Nationalistes were divided. They agreed that reform was necessary and that it should be achieved within a Catholic system of education. They did not demand, as Godfroy Langlois did, a secular schooling system. But they disagreed on the extent of reform; for example, both Asselin and Fournier favoured compulsory education, a view that was at odds with Héroux, Lavergne, and Bourassa.

l aw a n d l aw y e rs Law enjoyed a relatively privileged position in the civil societies of both Scotland and Quebec as both an institution and a profession. Several of the nationalists under study were members of the legal profession. This section, therefore, seeks to locate the legal system within the civil societies of Scotland and Quebec and examines its influence on Young Scots and Nationalistes. The Scottish legal system played an important role in the eighteenth century in mediating central regulation imposed from London. In the nineteenth century, however, it gained a new centrality. The chief law officer, the lord advocate, was to all intents and purposes in charge of Scottish government; although technically only an advisor to the UK home secretary, in practice he had substantial autonomy in areas that did not affect England’s security, including Scottish law enforcement. Indeed, the legal profession more generally gained a

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new centrality in national government, for example, staffing many of the boards that oversaw welfare provision. This new role was reflected in a growing self-confidence among lawyers: they demanded equal recognition with English lawyers within the Empire, commented on legislation that might affect Scotland, and made their own legislative proposals while the Faculty of Advocates, the body that represented Scottish lawyers, stood firm against encroachments by English courts on Scottish jurisdiction.60 The Scottish legal system also proved receptive to change from within Scottish civil society, although not without difficulty. For example, pressure to reform Scotland’s commercial law came from Glasgow merchants, the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, and the Faculty of Advocates. It was not imposed from outside, despite the fact that the development of commercial law was at the time viewed as the adoption of English measures. Perhaps conscious of just these assertions, the English lord chancellor would only agree to extend the proposed commercial legislation if Scots could first reach a consensus for the change. In a profession dominated by liberalism, the Sale of Goods Act of 1893 can be considered as something of a compromise between liberalism and liberal nationalism, since the measure could be viewed as simply the first step toward an eventual international code – a goal shared by both liberals and liberal nationalists.61 While the character of the Scottish legal system had changed through the post-Union era, it continued to promote itself as a distinctive national institution. There is a certain irony that just as the Scottish legal system became more like that of England’s, meeting the demands of an industrial and commercial country, “law and lawyers retained a central role in the maintenance and assertion of national identity in the civil society of the nineteenth century.”62 Thus, while economically Scotland and England grew more alike, Scotland’s political institutions ensured that its distinctiveness was maintained. The Scottish legal profession “was both Scottish in composition and Scottish in orientation.”63 Relatively few Scottish lawyers made the transition from Scots law to English common law, while the reverse was unheard of. John Gulland, J.S. Saunders, and F.J. Robertson were the most prominent Young Scot members of the legal profession. As lawyers who were both liberals and nationalists, their politics attest to the Scottish legal system’s ability to foster liberalism while retaining its national character.

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In Francophone Quebec, too, law was a key institution and a prestigious profession for the Francophone middle class. Armand Lavergne practiced law, having completed a law degree at Université Laval. Henri Bourassa had studied law, first under his cousin Auguste Mackay and then under the distinguished lawyer Édouard Dorion. Bourassa had had the entrance examination to study law waived. He was motivated by a desire both to establish himself in a profession and to deepen his legal knowledge for his political career. He was particularly drawn to constitutional law, but it appears that he neither completed his training nor practiced law.64 As in Scotland, Quebec’s civil code served as a symbolically important institution. Yet it had undergone considerable change since the 1774 Quebec Act had secured its existence. Alexis de Tocqueville, visiting Quebec (then Lower Canada) in 1831, was thoroughly unimpressed by a visit to a Quebec City’s civil court. He took exception to the hybrid quality of the proceedings and its use of both French and English.65 Yet it is precisely this mixture of both French and English influences that characterize Quebec’s distinct civil code. In an attempt to bring cohesion, and to revise and reform a largely preindustrial legal system, George-Étienne Cartier oversaw its codification, which was completed in 1866.66 The resulting civil code, practiced in the second half of the nineteenth century, was a mixture of several influences, both political and economic: the United Canada parliament (1841–67), a single legislature that had enacted laws for both Quebec (Canada East) and Ontario (Canada West), despite the fact that they shared quite different legal systems, had had a substantial impact, so too did market capitalism, which exerted a powerful influence.67 There was a complex relationship between Quebec’s legal and business communities, particularly since lawyers increasingly acted as corporate lawyers and shared the same values as those in business. The legal community as a whole was not oblivious to the social and economic changes taking place within Quebec’s civil society. This is best illustrated in the attempts to make Quebec’s commercial law compatible with Canadian law. The legal community split between nationalists, who wished to preserve the distinctiveness of the existing civil code, and liberals, who sought to reform the civil code and facilitate commerce. Judges such as Joseph-Guillaume Bossé and Henri-Elzéar Taschereau used their positions to make court rulings favourable to the unification of Canadian commercial

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law. Despite these incremental moves toward reform, however, strong opposition to these measures on the part of nationalists was not aroused until after the First World War.68 Instead, during this period, lawyers in Quebec were among the foremost carriers of liberalism: “they [lawyers] carried within the legal community the values found in civil society. But, at the same time, they interpreted or applied laws strongly influenced by liberalism.”69 Yet liberalism had to vie with other influences for dominance within the legal community. Sylvio Normand points out that Quebec’s legal community was a heterogeneous one: “The lawyers were a mixed group where various ideologies coexisted, be it liberalism, ultramontanism, or nationalism.”70 Moreover, lawyers often exhibited elements from each of these different, even contradictory, ideological currents. Both Henri Bourassa and Armand Lavergne sought to reconcile these intellectual currents. Law was a long-standing profession and a key institution in the civil societies of Scotland and Quebec. It reflected well the competing ideologies of liberalism and nationalism, as pressure grew to reform the legal system in order to better meet the needs of a changing society and economy, while at the same time maintaining its national distinctiveness. As the reform of commercial law demonstrated, these pressures had been largely reconciled within the Scottish legal system; however, an unresolved tension was still evident within Quebec’s legal system, where liberalism and nationalism were competing rather than complementary ideologies. In different ways the Young Scots and Nationalistes reflected these contrasting legal systems through the involvement of their members.

l o c a l g ov e r n m e n t Tocqueville famously noted the importance of local government to the civil life of the USA. It was equally important in Scotland and Quebec. Local government was, above all, where the urban middle class sought to exercise its power and influence, a locus in which reformers and moderates confronted one another. As Graeme Morton makes clear, the local state was key to the governance of Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century: “Scotland did indeed have a civil society, which was largely self-governed. Politics did not begin at Westminster: for Victorians local issues and local solutions were cardinal.”71 Yet the Edwardian view of local government differed

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markedly: it was simply unable to meet the demands placed on it. The UK central state was increasingly taking its place, as exemplified by the creation of the Scotch Education Department (1872) and the Scottish Office (1885).72 Despite the fact that several prominent Young Scots – J.W. Gulland, James Leishman, F.J. Robertson, J.M. Hogge, and Alexander MacLaren – served as local councillors, local government only featured in their program as it related to the achievement of Scottish Home Rule. This is curious given the extent to which municipalities such as Glasgow had sought to cultivate a sense of civic pride and achievement through measures such as the municipalization of the key public utilities of gas and water.73 In spite of these achievements, Young Scots continued to insist that an over-centralized London government, which had neither the time nor the inclination to scrutinize its workings and legislate accordingly, was hampering local government.74 Indeed, Scottish local government was a key source of support for Scottish Home Rule during this period: the Convention of Scottish Burghs and individual provosts from Glasgow, Dundee, and a host of small towns across Scotland gave their backing to this demand. This is perhaps a reflection of the fact that local government was unable to meet the demands of its civil society, that a Scottish Parliament was necessary to empower it with the appropriate legislation and resources to meet local needs. Morton aptly summarizes the issue: “the local bourgeoisie no longer had the institutional structure that could deal with the extent of demands made on government.”75 In addition, there was a democratic argument: elected local members believed that it should be the responsibility of elected officials and not appointed officials (government appointed members of local boards) to set the local agenda. Local government, specifically the municipal politics of Montreal – the city in which, with the exception of Armand Lavergne, the Nationalistes lived and worked – featured differently in the civil society of Quebec. It continued to matter. Patrice Dutil argues convincingly that local politics impacted on wider provincial and federal politics, that the municipal arena, far from devoid of partisan politics, played an important role in the struggles between moderates and reformers within the Quebec Liberal Party.76 Yet the shortcoming in Dutil’s approach is that those individuals and groups who did not fall within a narrowly defined set of “Liberal progressives,” grouped around Godfroy Langlois, are dismissed as “conservative and often

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contradictory”: the Ligue nationaliste; a disparate collection of groups comprising the “Good Government Association”; the Association of Citizens; and labour organizations. This is too sweeping and misrepresents several of the organizations mentioned.77 As Dutil acknowledges, several reform movements emerged in Montreal politics during this period. They were grouped around H.B. Ames and Hormidas Laporte. These were urban, middle-class movements concerned above all with the elimination of corruption at city hall, which was epitomized by the administration of Raymond Préfontaine. In addition to cleaning up municipal finances, they sought to improve the city’s sanitary conditions. But it is true that their approach was often technocratic, and at the expense of democratic control, which they believed was vulnerable to the popular prejudices of the electorate.78 Asselin and Fournier maintained a strong interest in Montreal’s municipal politics and were generally supportive of municipal reformers. The motivating factor was their commitment to expose political corruption. To this end, Asselin had sought to make common cause between the fledgling Ligue nationaliste and the Union of Canadian Municipalities.79 Indeed, Asselin had participated in a number of these middle-class movements. He was a member of the Committee of Citizens, later the Association of Citizens, formed by the Board of Trade and the Chamber of Commerce; a new administrative system was introduced as a result of their efforts.80 He was later a joint honorary secretary of the City Improvement League, and as president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste of Montreal he had campaigned to combat infant mortality by improving the city’s housing. He was also briefly the municipal affairs editor for Le Devoir. Asselin testified to his long-standing support of municipal reformers, regardless of their ethnic origin: When Mr H.B. Ames started his reform campaign at City Hall with Mr Laporte some French papers, now strong supporters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, were against him on the alleged grounds that he was ruling the City for the English. Nationalist as I was I stood by Mr Ames through thick and thin in the humble capacity of a newspaper writer.81 Fournier used L’Action, his journal de combat, to launch scathing attacks on the cronyism at city hall. In 1914 he went one step further as a council candidate and stood unsuccessfully on a platform of

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wresting the autonomy of Montreal back from the provincial government. Undeterred, he remained active in municipal affairs. He accused Médéric Martin, the mayor of Montreal, of robbing the city in a deal concerning the purchase of asphalt and of other irregularities, including the awarding of a tramway franchise. Martin sued but, luckily for Fournier, lost: Fournier could ill afford the cost of damages. In 1916, Fournier stood again, this time under the banner “A vote for Fournier is a vote against the Martin administration.” He was successful, although his term lasted only three months; his re-election campaign was unsuccessful at the following election.82 In common with Dutil’s “Liberal progressives,” the Nationalistes opposed the monopoly held by Montreal Light Heat and Power (MLH&P), a trust that had been established in 1901 and that became the sole supplier of gas and electricity in the Montreal area. MLH&P’s position owed much to its ability to influence municipal representatives through large election donations. The Nationalistes had initially proceeded along in classical liberal lines, believing that the best way to undermine MLH&P’s monopoly was to encourage competition. When the practicality of instituting this proved unrealistic, the Nationalistes sought some form of public intervention. For Bourassa, this meant either forcing MLH&P to negotiate with the city council or submitting the terms of any contract with the city to a referendum.83 In contrast, from 1904 Asselin favoured municipalization (he had supported competition only when municipalization had proved impossible). Writing in Le Devoir in 1911, 84 Asselin reflected: In my youth I believed in […] the necessity of competition in all public services [but] for a long time I have been convinced that certain services cannot be carried on under conditions of competition but by their very nature must be exploited as a monopoly […]. The sole necessary condition is that the public exercise on the exploitation, either directly or by its representatives, an effective control.85 In this regard Asselin’s solution differed little from that of Dutil’s Liberal progressives. Moreover, a charge frequently levied against Montreal city reformers was that it was an Anglophone movement, dedicated to serving the interests of the city’s Anglophone West Island. This message found favour with the city’s Francophone working class.86 The

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Nationalistes stood firmly against the attempt to divert attention from reform by playing the “ethnic card,” however. During the 1910 election, an established practice whereby there was an effective rotation of office between Anglophone and Francophone mayors was threatened. Bourassa and the Nationalistes publicly endorsed the Anglophone G.W. Stephens. Asselin recalled that At the last municipal elections [in 1910], I was one of the first with Mr Bourassa, to denounce those who appealed to French Canadian sentiment in order to be able to perpetuate the reign of graft and plunder in civic affairs. In fact, I believe I may state that Le Devoir, whose municipal department was under my control, must be credited for checking the tide of racialism which threatened to sweep the greater portion of the city.87 Despite the Nationalistes’ efforts, the Martin administration, which took office in 1914, proved itself adept at wining office through precisely this strategy of ethnic division. Not only secular concerns played a role in Montreal’s municipal politics. The Catholic Church also continued to play an important role. Although in 1903 the Church was for the first time subject to municipal tax as part of a wider “désacralisation de l’éspace.”88 Nevertheless, its influence was still strong. This is best illustrated by the proposal to establish a Montreal municipal library. In 1901, the Carnegie Foundation had offered a substantial endowment for the purchase of books toward the establishment of a public library for Montreal following an application from Montreal city council. However, Archbishop Bruchési insisted that the Church should retain control and opposed the establishment of a secular institution. Instead, the Church sought to fill the gap with the establishment of the Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice in 1910. A municipal library had to wait until 1917.89 The position of local government differed markedly in the different contexts of Scotland and Quebec. In Scotland, a bureaucracy outside of popular control, and a local government with insufficient powers to respond effectively to growing social demands, hampered the effective administration of civil society. Young Scots, many of whom had served in local government, sought a Scottish Parliament as a means of empowering local government and making it accountable. In Quebec, Montreal city council was accused of corruption, of being

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too close to sectional interests, such as MLH&P, and thereby ineffectively administering civil society. The Nationalistes supported municipal reformers and some public control over privately owned utilities. Asselin, in particular, favoured their municipalization, much in the same way that Glasgow had undertaken the municipalization of gas.

the press Both Scotland and Quebec enjoyed a distinctive and vibrant press. In both countries this was the era when newspapers developed a mass circulation.90 With the extension of the franchise, newspapers gained a new and important influence on the mass electorate. Print media’s influence was recognized by the Young Scots and Nationalistes, and as a result both sets of nationalists were concerned with its political complexion. In Scotland the wave of jingoism surrounding the Boer War, promoted by Scotland’s leading broadsheet newspapers, the Glasgow Herald and the Scotsman, which had brought the Society into existence: It was felt that the formation of public opinion on questions of the deepest import to the political, economic and moral wellbeing of the nation was being controlled to a perilous degree by a newspaper press swayed solely by considerations of party advantage. The untrustworthiness of the average daily, as a guide, is amply demonstrated in periods of national excitement, and it was recognized that a Society, having for its aim the enlightenment of public opinion on subjects too exclusively claimed as the special province of a biased press, could not fail to perform a useful function.91 The behaviour of these newspapers, in particular, was the cause of some concern for Liberals, not least since they had promoted the Liberal cause through much of the nineteenth century. However, they threw their support behind the Liberal Unionists following the Irish Home Rule crisis of 1886. Scottish Liberals were eager to reestablish a national Liberal voice in Scotland’s print media.92 In the first instance, the Young Scots established their own journal, The Young Scot (1903–05), which began its short life as a weekly. But it was unable to secure a stable financial footing and soon folded. The Young Scots continued to seek a publication that would reflect

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Scotland’s national and political sensibilities. Walter Murray, convener of the Young Scots Publication Committee, expressed the Young Scots’ desire not only for “an official periodical [that] would help to keep remote branches in vital touch with the central body, and that would bind the whole movement more closely together, in addition to providing an excellent medium for the Society’s National and Progressive propaganda,” but they also sought a National Liberal Daily newspaper in Scotland “that shall be Liberal as Scotsmen are Liberal, and that shall voice the national demands of Scottish progressives.”93 Yet neither came to pass. The Nationalistes took exception to the partisan nature of the press in Quebec and sought to establish an independent voice, free of party influence, that would put Canada’s interest first, without pampering to French/English prejudices. Olivar Asselin bemoaned the fact that [A] great many Canadian newspapers today are mere business ventures … The crying need of the hour all over Canada is a Press free from the grip of financial buccaneers, and when such papers exist in Quebec, the difference in language will not be the danger to National unity, that, to a certain extent, it may be now.94 La Patrie in Montreal and Le Soleil in Quebec City served the Liberal Party. The importance that the Liberal Party placed on newspaper support is well illustrated by the following incident. When Israël Tarte was dismissed from Laurier’s federal cabinet, he took his paper, La Patrie, and its support for the Liberal Party with him. The Liberal Party immediately then set about establishing another newspaper, Le Canada.95 Journalism was a profession that united four of the five Nationalistes. The newspapers they worked for and their approach to their profession are revealing about their commitment to liberalism. Both Olivar Asselin and Jules Fournier worked for many of Quebec’s leading newspapers (Le Journal, La Patrie, La Presse, Le Canada): these mass circulation newspapers adhered to a broadly liberal conception of progress. In contrast, both Henri Bourassa and Omer Héroux’s journalistic careers were a mix of both the mainstream liberal press and the Catholic press: Bourassa had for a few brief days in March 1897 been editor of La Patrie96 long before he

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established Le Devoir, and Omer Héroux had served on Le Journal, in addition to Catholic newspapers such as Le Trifluvien, Le Monde catholique, Le Pionnier, La Verité, and L’Action sociale. Bourassa and Héroux both eschewed Asselin’s and Fournier’s tendency to attract controversy and legal suits. Both Asselin and Fournier displayed a combative approach to journalism, one that sought to expose corruption and hypocrisy, frequently within their own profession. Fournier routinely took aim at his fellow journalists across the political spectrum: the government newspapers, La Presse, Le Canada, Le Soleil, and La Vigie, were accused of placing their support for the Liberal government above their duty to journalism, while the Catholic L’Action sociale, a newspaper for which Héroux wrote, was criticized for being too lecturing.97 It was Les Débats, with its firm independent editorial line, that provided the model for Asselin’s Le Nationaliste, and later for Fournier’s L’Action: “Our newspaper is not sold and nor will it ever be sold to any coterie. It will act according to conscience, inspired by justice and the rights of the weak, respecting the good intentions of all.”98 This liberal stance was echoed in both Le Nationaliste and L’Action.99 Their editorials were critical of political corruption and patronage. Both newspapers singled out fellow journalists whom they accused of colluding with the corrupt system. More than this, these newspapers also sought to provide a forum for the discussion of ideas. Here the influence of the fledgling French Canadian social science – notably the writings of the economist Érrol Bouchette and the sociologist Édouard Montpetit – was apparent.100 Between July and November 1905, Le Nationaliste invited contributions from prominent politicians, journalists, writers (including several women), educators, economists, artists, and businessmen to share their views on the future of French Canadians, in a serial called “L’Avenir des Canadiens français.”101 These newspapers also provided literary coverage. The literature that they featured was also revealing: it was a more introspective literature, which celebrated artistic and intellectual freedom, most famously expressed in the works of Émile Nelligan.102 This was a reflection of the liberal approach to literature taken by both Le Nationaliste and L’Action, itself a reflection of the fact that “liberalism tends to encourage artistic innovation which was sought and advocated by these modern writers.”103 In contrast, Bourassa’s Le Devoir was a much more conservative affair. It received support from the Catholic Church’s leading clergy

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for its staunch support of Catholicism. It did not follow the practice of providing a forum for new literature, and unlike its predecessor it adopted a high moral tone in line with the Church’s social and moral teachings. Its first issue proclaimed that it would not accept advertising from, among other things, “bad books, immoral theatre, strong drink (other than wine and beer),” and it made this commitment: “We want to protect the public, and especially the worker, against exploitation of which it is a victim.”104 This highlights the fact that newspapers in Quebec had to contend with the Church. In 1903, Les Débats was condemned by the Church and shortly thereafter went out of business.105 To those such as Asselin’s friend Wilfrid Gascon, a committed rouge, it only served to strengthen his view that the Church was “the greatest enemy of the people, because it is the church that stands in the way of progress of ideas or public spirit and of the critical thought that informs the common man on the things that he does not know, it is this clerical power that prohibits newspapers.”106 Gascon warned Asselin that a similar fate could befall Le Nationaliste: Before long you will pass for an enemy of order and authority. From that day you will become suspect to the priests, and bishops will admonish you because any sign of independence troubles these people in their peaceful enjoyment of their advantages, which are endangered by an awakened critical spirit. 107 Its secular orientation did indeed concern the staunchly conservative and ultramontane Tardivel and his son-in-law Bégin. The latter accused Asselin and Le Nationaliste of freemasonry. This was a particular concern at the time: freemasons were accused of promoting secularism, an accusation not without a grain of truth, given that the leading proponent of secular schooling, Godfroy Langlois, was a widely publicized freemason.108 Both the Young Scots and Nationalistes were cognisant of the newly acquired role of the mass-printed press. The strategies they developed in response are revealing. The YSS had sought the establishment of a liberal and nationalist journal to reach beyond their immediate members: ultimately this proved unsuccessful. Considerably more attention has been devoted to the Nationalistes, given the importance of journalism in their biographies. In contrast, the Nationalistes were content to establish newspapers aimed at an

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influential segment of the population. Yet key differences are apparent in the content of these newspapers: while Le Nationaliste and L’Action were campaigning liberal and nationalist newspapers, Le Devoir was a more cautious affair, an explicitly Catholic nationalist newspaper, able to reach an influential elite through its espousal of Catholicism. Therefore, once again, the Nationalistes reflected the makeup of their civil society: expressing an attempt to reconcile their liberalism and Catholicism. Yet it is important to reiterate a point already stated: while the Church remained influential, its influence must be measured against the fact that all four of Quebec’s French-language mass circulation newspapers – Le Canada, Le Journal, La Patrie, and La Presse – were entirely secular concerns, and they adhered to an essentially liberal conception of political and economic progress.109

business and commerce The commercial and industrial growth of Scotland and Quebec was fundamental to the growth of an urban middle class, the driving force behind the development of civil society. Young Scots engaged in various forms of business. Absent from their membership were members of the imperially orientated grande bourgeoisie. Instead, members were found among moyenne and petite bourgeois occupations. Their business interests were largely small and medium in scale. J.W. Gulland inherited his father’s Edinburgh-based corn merchant business, while Roland Muirhead and Alexander MacLaren (president, YSS Western Council, 1913–15) were small businessmen. Muirhead owned his family’s tannery business, the Gryffe Tannery Company of Bridge of Weir, while MacLaren ran the family printing and publishing business, which specialized in “all things Gaelic.” Claude Wilson (secretary, Edinburgh West End YSS, 1904) was a wholesale bookseller. James Matson (YSS secretary, 1902–03, 1905– 07) and James Steel (president, Liverpool YSS) had unspecified business interests. Lawyers, many of whom had business interests, were also a key component of the YSS membership. The common trait among these business interests is that they were Scottish-based, with the exception of Liverpool resident James Steel. These were middle-class Scottish-educated Presbyterian merchants and manufacturers predisposed to a Home Rule message. Their backgrounds in business may also, in part, explain their adherence

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to Liberal principles, the maintenance of which were thought to be crucial to the prosperity and therefore the peace and well-being of society. This was particularly well expressed in the determination and commitment Young Scots demonstrated in pursuing their Free Trade campaign. Yet this classical economic liberalism was increasingly augmented by a commitment to social liberalism, one that envisioned a greater role for the state in alleviating the social distresses caused by the market economy. This is illustrated well in the changing views of, J.W. Gulland, Young Scot, corn merchant, UFC member, and Liberal MP. In 1906 he published a book entitled Christ’s Kingdom in Scotland, or the Social Mission of the United Free Church, in which he argued that a Church-based scheme was sufficient to tackle poverty, which, using a classical Liberal analysis, was caused by individuals themselves and, above all, by drink and gambling. However, by 1911 he was endorsing the Insurance Bills that represented a state-led social liberal approach,110 an acknowledgment that a more comprehensive measure was required. Francophone Quebecers were largely absent from the grand bourgeoisie, more numerous within the moyenne bourgeoisie, and dominant among the petite bourgeoisie. The Catholic Church is often held to have explicitly or implicitly inhibited the growth of a French business class. There is some truth to this. Yet this view belies the very complexity of Francophone Quebec civil society itself. Two examples make the point. William F. Ryan established that the Church was itself instrumental in facilitating the development of industrialization in the rural Mauricie and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean areas of Quebec. It did so in a number of ways, for example, by “fostering an atmosphere of industrial peace” through the clergy’s opposition to industrial conflict and labour organizations.111 Moreover, Fernande Roy establishes that a substantial Francophone business class emerged at the turn of the century.112 It was based around the Chambre de commerce du district de Montréal (1887) and was given a voice through Le Moniteur du commerce (1881) and in the chamber’s own publication, Le Bulletin. The chamber was itself an attempt to provide some cohesion to the Francophone business community. During this period its membership grew steadily, despite some fluctuation: between 1899 and 1913 its membership doubled, from 509 to 1,056 (Anglophones constituted a relatively small proportion of its membership: 6.5 percent in 1899 and 7.7 percent in 1913).113

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It was above all concerned with economic development and growth. Two principles were key to achieving this end: respect for private property and individual liberty. The Chamber of Commerce and the business press championed both and compromised on neither.114 So long as these principles were guaranteed their wider political agenda was limited. There was, however, one exception: education. The Chamber of Commerce and Le Bulletin were consistent critics of the education system: they wanted both an expansion of education and an improvement in its quality, and specifically they wanted it to better meet the needs of industry; this implicated the Church and its control of the education system. Yet once a specialized education had been established they were willing to concede the major part of the education system to the Church. Francophone businessmen were careful to steer a course that would not lead them into conflict with the Church, not least since the majority of its members were themselves practicing Catholics. But their clear preference was that religion should be a private affair.115 In this way, Francophone businessmen promoted liberalism within Quebec civil society. Moreover, members of the business community were themselves active in wider associational life: in addition to their membership in the Chamber of Commerce and the Montreal Board of Trade they were also members of the Association Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the Ligue de l’enseignement, the Association des citoyens de Montréal, the Union catholique, the Cercle Ville-Marie, and the Liberal and Conservative parties.116 So their liberalism was not confined solely to the business arena. Indeed, a considerable proportion of the Chamber of Commerce, between 15 and 20 percent, was composed of the liberal professions.117 Paul-André Linteau notes that law could act as a springboard toward business, and more generally that lawyers in Quebec were part of the distinctive North American phenomenon of lawyers with business interests outside the legal profession.118 This connection is important. It highlights the degree to which the commercial and professional worlds often overlapped and questions the assertion often made that business held little attraction for French Canadians, given the higher status afforded to the liberal professions. Commerce and the professions did not constitute discrete spheres. While Francophones were clearly underrepresented within Quebec bourgeoisie, they nevertheless constituted a substantial proportion. The peculiar distribution of the Francophone bourgeoisie is of

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particular interest. Few were to be found in the industrial sector. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to membership was the lack of an information network, something crucial to maintaining the necessary technological knowledge. Francophones faced no such barrier in commerce, finance, and real estate.119 The network of regional banks established across Quebec were testimony to this. While Anglophone financial institutions, above all Sun Life, dominated life insurance in 1901, G.-N. Ducharme formed a Francophone company, La Sauvegarde.120 Ducharme was later a financial backer of Le Devoir. In 1904, Henri Bourassa gave up his legal studies in order to take on the more lucrative position of secretary in La Sauvegarde, reputedly in an attempt to increase his income.121 The financial sector proved lucrative for Olivar Asselin, who was both an administrator and publicist for the financial house of Versailles, Vidricaire et Boulais following the First World War.122 However, before coming to finance Asselin had, in the immediate prewar period, also made a living in real estate, becoming secretary of the Crédit Métropolitain.123 Real estate proved particularly lucrative to Francophone businessmen because its very success depended on knowledge of local conditions and the ability to influence city or town councils. Therefore what marks these ventures was that the information networks – key to their success – were peculiar to Francophone Quebec society.124 Olivar Asselin expressed a certain admiration for French Canadians who succeeded in the business world. He thought they were a source of pride to all French Canadians: I was telling my friends that the element that gives the greatest credit to our people in Montreal, is not those who have just become rich only at gambling, nor men from the liberal professions, but industrialists and merchants who, like the Rollands, the Héberts, the Laportes, and Racines, made for themselves a first rate position in business despite English competition. 125 Despite his own involvement in business, Bourassa was always more cautious. He was profoundly suspicious of the effect of materialism on the moral wellbeing of Catholic society. In this period a distinctive form of business was established in Quebec by Alphonse Desjardins: the Caisses populaires. It grew throughout Quebec from its humble origins in Desjardins’s hometown of Lévis. Crucially it attracted the support of the Catholic Church, with the result that

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parishes often acted as the basis of individual branches.126 Both Bourassa and Héroux were strong supporters and promoters of this movement in the pages of Le Devoir. It seemed to offer a middle course between capital and labour. The Church sought to maintain its influence through its practical support for this movement. Commerce was a carrier of liberalism in the civil societies of Scotland and Quebec. Scotland’s business and commercial society was well established. The dominant Liberalism and Presbyterianism provided it with ideological support. Yet something of an ideological shift was detectable: while Young Scots remained committed to free trade, support was also voiced in favour of social reform. In contrast, in Quebec it was not so much that the Church stood against commercial society, but rather that it sought to influence its development and thereby curb those elements that it feared most. Yet liberal openings were also apparent, most notably in the growth of a Francophone business community. The Nationalistes views on commerce must be viewed in this light. As noted in chapter 4, Asselin and Fournier adopted Érrol Bouchette’s call of “Emparons-nous de l’industrie” (Let us seize industry) in contrast to the more traditional “Emparons-nous du sol” (Let us seize the land). This was a call to which Armand Lavergne was also sympathetic. Yet Bourassa and Héroux were more cautious. They reflected divisions within Quebec civil society.

n e w s o c i a l m ov e m e n t s : labour, women, and minorities The way in which a society is able to accommodate new social claims for inclusion is indicative of that society’s tolerance, of its civility. During this period it was not only nationalists who made a claim for recognition but also movements representing labour and women. In addition, the arrival of immigrants to Scotland and Quebec posed a further challenge. They, too, sought an accommodation within Scottish or Quebec civil society. This section explores how Scottish and Francophone Quebec civil society generally, and the Young Scots and Nationalistes in particular, responded to these demands for inclusion. The contrast between the labour movements in Scotland and Quebec is a reflection not only of the level of industrial development but also of the political climate that prevailed.127 Scotland’s proletariat was long established, as were the organizations that sought to

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represent it. Yet both grew in strength during this period. The Liberal Party had traditionally represented working men. But, its failure to adequately represent their demands led to the formation of labour parties. Yet the break with the Liberal Party was not as decisive as it might appear. Many of the concerns of the emergent Labour movement reflected its Liberal origins. Joan Smith notes that in Glasgow the general elections of 1906 and 1910 were fought on the basis of free trade, anti-landlordism, and anti-House of Lords feeling respectively, key liberal policies.128 Indeed she argues that the strong Liberal tradition in Glasgow checked the rise of Protestant and Catholic sectarianism, emphasizing instead fundamental democratic and radical principles.129 To a certain extent the YSS and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) grew in tandem. The YSS sought to engage the ILP in political debate. Indeed, the Young Scots suggested that the creation of a Scottish Parliament would benefit the fledgling Labour Party and that “Home Rule is the hope of the Scottish Worker”: “There is no doubt that under Scottish Home Rule a Labour Party would play a large part in Scottish national politics, and it would have, like all other bodies of reformers, a freer field for its policy and programme. All Scottish parties are hampered by the present centralized system of government.”130 Many within the radical wing of the YSS shared a common cause with the Labour movement and its demand for social reform. Roland Muirhead suggested that in the wake of the Liberal Party’s failure to give sufficient prominence to Scottish Home Rule, the YSS should instead support Labour candidates, provided that they were committed to Scottish Home Rule.131 Muirhead sought to create a YSS that would appeal to progressives generally. He wanted to replace the YSS’s constitutional commitment to the furtherance of “liberal principles” with “democratic principles” in order that the Society could become a broader based organization.132 Indeed he suggested Forward, the socialist weekly he financially supported, as an appropriate forum for YSS articles.133 Moreover, following the First World War he joined the ILP together with several Young Scots. The ease with which they made the transition from the Liberal YSS to the socialist ILP reflects a continuity of policies between the two organizations; in their promotion of social reform, the YSS shared much in common with the Labour movement. The Nationalistes courted the much weaker Quebec labour movement in their campaigns. The first decade of the twentieth century was a period of growing militancy and expansion of the trade union

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movement in Quebec. The most notable successes were among the American international unions, which were affiliated to the American Federation of Labour. Membership numbers are not available for Quebec, yet a sense of their growth can be gleamed by examining the growth in union locals: in 1901 there were 74 international union locals to 64 Canadian union locals, by 1916 there were 236 international union locals, 70 Canadian and 23 Catholic. The formation of the Parti ouvrier (in 1899, and again in 1904), which elected an MP to the House of Commons in 1906, and which was particularly active in Montreal politics during this period, was a reflection of this success. Yet in 1912 it went into a period of rapid decline.134 At least initially, the Nationalistes shared a number of common causes with the labour movement. Most notably, Alphonse Verville, president of the Canadian Congress for Trades and Labour and Labour MP for Maisonneuve, campaigned against sending troops to South Africa, supported Bourassa’s amendment to the Sunday Bill, and supported Lavergne’s campaign to introduce bilingualism in the public services in Quebec.135 In the Sainte-Marie election of November 1905 the Nationalistes campaigned openly in favour of the Labour candidate, Joseph Ainey, against the official Liberal candidate, Médéric Martin.136 Yet these campaigns were more the result of a collusion of interests rather than a deeply held shared program of objectives. Jacques Rouillard notes that during the Sainte-Marie by-election, Ainey refrained from exploiting one of his favourite causes, free and compulsory education, a cause, as noted above, that Bourassa opposed. This was the last occasion where the nationalist and labour movements would formally combine their efforts. Thereafter a gulf began to grow between Bourassa and the international unions.137 Nevertheless, common interests meant that the Nationalistes continued to support labour initiatives, and, in their support for social reform, the Nationalistes shared much in common with organized labour.138 Bourassa shared many of the concerns of the leading clergy of the time, who were alarmed at the growth of “foreign” and secular trade unions, and instead sought the formation of Catholic trade unions. Following Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical, Rerum Novarum (1891), which supported the formation of labour organizations, Catholics sought means by which labour organization could be brought within the Catholic fold. On the initiative of certain priests, the Catholic Church in Quebec took the first tentative steps toward the formation of

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Catholic trade unions, which would admit only Catholics to membership and which were, in their early history at least, “businessfriendly.” During a trip to Europe in 1914, Henri Bourassa made a study of the development of Catholic trade unions in Belgium, and he was much impressed by their success.139 But before 1914 this was a small-scale movement.140 In contrast, the international unions were an important carrier of liberalism, in its affirmation of individual rights against both the Church and state,141 views that Olivar Asselin had little trouble in supporting.142 Women also made demands for social and political inclusion during this period. One of the first Young Scot branches was the Edinburgh Women’s Branch established in 1900. The branch was short-lived, and few women maintained a high profile within the YSS.143 Indeed, surviving evidence suggests that none held either branch or national office. One possible explanation is the establishment of a more conducive vehicle through which women’s participation within the Liberal Party could be encouraged, namely the Scottish Women’s Liberal Association (SWLA). Hutchison notes that this organization grew in both branches and membership during this period: in 1904 it had 70 branches and 11,000 members, ten years later it had grown to 174 branches and 25,000 members.144 These figures need to be viewed with some caution, since there was considerable variation in the level of activity of both individual branches and members. In addition, an organization specifically dedicated to the attainment of women’s suffrage, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), was established in 1903 by the Pankhursts with the rallying cry, “Votes for Women.” This organization founded in England found success in Scotland.145 Through its campaign of civil disobedience, the WSPU favoured a direct approach. It marked a break from the more genteel campaigning style of earlier middleclass organizations, characterized by meetings in church halls and, more commonly, in the drawing rooms of the wealthy.146 The WSPU found support from Tom Johnston, editor of the socialist Forward, and Young Scots such as Roland Muirhead and John L. Kinloch. The issue of women’s suffrage was debated within the YSS. The Young Scots’ Handbook 1911–12 contained articles both for and against.147 The Society’s leading members were to be found at either end of the debate: William Laughland, the Society’s president (1911– 13), was an active member of the Committee of Liberals Opposed to Woman Suffrage (an organization that included the Liberal MP

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A.M. Scott), while Roland Muirhead was a committed supporter of women’s suffrage and a member of a men’s organization in support of women’s suffrage. In 1913, Scottish Home Rule and women’s suffrage were linked: in that year the Scottish Home Rule Bill included a clause to extend the vote to women for Scottish parliamentary elections.148 This brought forth heated discussion within the Young Scots’ Society: objections were raised to introducing women’s suffrage “through the backdoor.” Yet a majority at the Young Scots’ Annual Conference in 1914 supported the measure.149 These developments reflect the growing political importance of women organizationally and in civil society more generally during this period. The WSPU, and organizations like it, put women’s suffrage firmly on the political agenda. Moreover, this reflected a wider reality. Women, more than men, were influencing Scotland through their roles within civil society: some middle-class women gained the vote for local municipal elections in 1882 and local school boards in 1873 (in that year women were also allowed to stand for election to school boards). The result was that women’s influence in local elections grew. For example, by 1901 women constituted 17 percent of the local electorate in Glasgow, the proportion was even higher in middle-class areas.150 The movement for women’s suffrage in Quebec has a curious history. Initially, it owed much to the influence of Anglophone women: it was the Montreal section of the National Council of Women of Canada that recruited bourgeois French Canadian women, such as Marie Gérin-Lajoie, Joséphine Dandurand, and Caroline Béïque. Thus, ironically, the first activities of Francophone feminists were as part of an English-speaking Protestant movement. In 1907, however, Gérin-Lajoie and Béïque founded the Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste (FNSJB), as a women’s section of the Société SaintJean-Baptiste. This organization was Catholic in orientation; it espoused a “féminisme tranquille,” focusing its activities on the traditional concerns of home and family.151 While Catholicism and French Canadian nationalism certainly predominated over progressive feminism,152 it demonstrated that a traditional institution could be malleable and allow, within limits, the expression of women’s demands. As president of the SSJB, Asselin was eager to cooperate with the FNSJB in the various campaigns he launched.153 Indeed, both Asselin and Fournier were generally supportive of women’s suffrage.154 Bourassa was not. In 1913, in a series of Le Devoir editorials, he

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campaigned strongly against feminism and the increased militancy of the suffrage movement (Emmeline Pankhurst had visited Montreal in December 1911). Despite his respect for British political and constitutional principles, he had none for this latest British import. Feminism was denounced as “foreign” and a threat to the moral and social wellbeing of Catholic Quebec.155 The response of these nationalists to immigrant minority groups also reveals the extent to which equality within Scotland and Quebec was part of their nationalist projects. While Scotland continued to lose a substantial portion of its potential labour force to Canada and other parts of the Empire, during the nineteenth century it acquired large numbers of Irish immigrants. Their presence was often linked to the issue of Irish Home Rule. This issue had split apart the Liberal Party in 1886 and continued to divide Scots. Yet the predominantly Protestant Young Scots’ Society gave their full support to Home Rule for predominantly Catholic Ireland and in doing so offered an accommodation with Irish Catholics in Scotland. Others viewed this strong support as a betrayal of Protestantism. The Young Scot F.J. Robertson, who was secretary of the Protestant Knox Club and election agent to the Home Rule-supporting lord advocate, was singled out for admonishment.156 Indeed, on the nationalist fringe a rather nasty ethnic side to Scottish nationalism was displayed. The Scottish Patriot deplored the use of ethnically “Irish” players in the Scottish football squad, and it criticized the lord provost of Glasgow, who had questioned whether ethnically Scottish players who played in England should play for the national team.157 More sinister still, Scotland’s tiny Jewish population came under scrutiny from John Wilson, the Scottish Patriot’s editor: “It is as well to know who are with you and who against you and in Scotland, as in France, the Jew may be safely appraised as a dangerous enemy to the cause of nationalism.”158 It is difficult to assess how widespread such anti-Semitic views were given that Scotland’s Jewish population remained small. In contrast, Quebec and particularly Montreal experienced substantial Jewish immigration during this period. The leading Nationalistes’ responses to their accommodation were varied. Those of Omer Héroux and Armand Lavergne were frequently intolerant and anti-Semitic. Henri Bourassa’s failure to condemn the Russian pogroms of 1905 and his attempt to understand the Russian massacres were also anti-Semitic.159 Yet, in the same year, 1906, during the Sunday debate, Bourassa had defended the right of Jews to work

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on the Christian Sabbath; and he supported a Quebec provincial law of 1907, which allowed Jewish men the right to work on Sundays in Quebec if they observed some other day.160 Indeed his grandfather, Louis-Joseph Papineau, had been the author of a law giving Jews full political rights in Quebec before any other part of the British Empire. Olivar Asselin’s reaction was restrained, but he expressed frustration, believing that Jews were “misled” about politics, being told in Yiddish which candidates were anti-Jewish: “He [Asselin] voted for Blumenthal [a Jewish municipal candidate] in 1910. He is nevertheless classed among the Jew baiters, because a Nationalist.”161 Jules Fournier was quick to condemn the anti-Semitism found in the pages of the Catholic nationalist journal, L’Action sociale. While he expressed his own view that there is something in the Jewish mentality that “instinctively offends us [French Canadians],” he identified anti-Semitism as “the most acute form of contemporary intolerance.” In Quebec and Canada “the Jews form the most sober, the most hard-working, the most peaceful and the most law-abiding class in our population,” rather than reproaching them, French Canadians should follow their example. Fournier suggested that the spirit of solidarity that marked the Jewish community should provide an example to Francophone Quebecers, who had shown only limited financial support for their fellow Franco-Ontarians in their struggle for French schooling.162 Asselin made a similar point, stating “The writer [Asselin] tells his [French Canadian] compatriots on all occasions that the honourable way for them to fight the Jew is to be better than he – if they can.”163 Thus, while neither Asselin nor Fournier wholeheartedly embraced Jewish immigrants, they did however practice a key tenet of liberalism, namely tolerance, supporting the enjoyment of equal rights within the nation. The labour and women’s movements, together with minorities’ demands for accommodation illustrate well the way in which the prevailing ethos within these civil societies established the degree to which accommodation was possible. In response to these demands, nationalists in Scotland and Quebec were divided. In different ways the Young Scots and Nationalistes attempted to accommodate these groups. Yet there was also opposition. There was a clear coincidence of interests between nationalists and the labour movements in Scotland and Quebec on the question of social reform. In Scotland, nationalists and the labour movement shared a common liberalism; in Quebec, while Asselin was generally sympathetic to the international unions,

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Bourassa deplored their irreligosity: following the Catholic Church he sought their co-option rather than their cooperation. Young Scots appear to have been generally supportive of women’s suffrage, although there was dissention. Both Asselin and Fournier were keen supporters of women’s suffrage, while Bourassa saw it as a threat to Catholic social order. Interestingly, the labour and women’s movements in Scotland and Quebec assumed a distinct Scottish and Francophone Quebec character. However, as important were the links between these movements, and similar movements in England and English-speaking Canada (and the United States, in the case of the international unions). On the question of immigrant minorities’ accommodation, the Young Scots appear to have been sympathetic to demands made by Irish Catholics. The Nationalistes were divided on the accommodation of Jews: Fournier and Asselin were the more sympathetic. Tentatively, it would appear that differences in approach could be explained by liberalism’s weaker hold in Quebec civil society: liberalism and Catholicism had not been reconciled.

conclusion Everett Hughes’s classic study, French Canada in Transition, concluded that while French Canadian society was changed by industrialization it did not lose its distinctiveness. By focusing on institutions and groups within civil society in Scotland and Quebec a similar conclusion has been reached. Scottish and Quebec civil society ensured that political, social, and economic change was mediated through both the maintenance and creation of institutions that retained a distinct national character. However, as important was the extent to which these groups and institutions were governed by liberal norms. The presence or absence of the Church in the civil life of Scotland and Quebec is key here. In Scotland, religious pluralism ensured that no one church was able to exert itself over Scottish society. The Church of Scotland’s withdrawal from schooling was a victory for religious pluralism. Moreover, religion was not absent in Scottish civil society, far from it, Presbyterianism and liberalism were mutually reinforcing; together they affirmed the centrality of individualism and the desirability of political and economic progress. This ethos infused many of the groups and institutions reviewed: law, the press, local government, and business. However the demands made

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by labour, women, and immigrant minorities posed a challenge to this entrenched liberalism. In contrast, the Catholic Church loomed large over the everyday life of Francophone Quebec. It increasingly sought to “cage” its members through the creation of a range of Church-sponsored organizations. Yet despite the continued prominence of the Catholic Church, liberal openings were possible. These liberal openings were particularly pronounced in areas in which the Church did not have a pre-existing dominance. This was true of the press and commerce. Yet, even in more traditional arenas where the Church was either in control (notably education) or had substantial support (such as in law and local government), liberal reform was in progress. Moreover, labour, women, and immigrant minorities all sought forms of liberal accommodation. So while the influence and presence of the Church is apparent, the picture that emerges is one that is at odds with the traditional monolithic picture that presents Quebec as an essentially Church-ridden society. In fact, there was ideological plurality, suggesting a plurality of power centres.164 Indeed, the decade before the outbreak of the First World War was marked by attempts at accommodation between these different powers centres, between the Church and politicians, businessmen, journalists, and labour leaders, in other words, between Catholicism and liberalism. Crucially, these civil societies had a pronounced influence on the character of the nationalism that was espoused by the Young Scots and the Nationalistes. To a large extent they reflected the extent to which liberalism was institutionalized. Young Scots and Nationalistes notably sought to reconcile their religious and secular lives. Young Scots were less troubled, since liberalism and Presbyterianism were entwined. Presbyterianism’s influence was diffuse, exerting a moral influence on the Young Scots. In contrast, Catholicism’s uneasy accommodation with liberalism was reflected in the divisions among the Nationalistes. The divisions were primarily centred around the question of the appropriate place of the Church in Quebec’s civil society: Asselin and Fournier viewed the Church as a moral guide, Bourassa, Lavergne, and Héroux sought to ensure its leading role. It is worth considering Fernande Roy’s words here that “to be liberal there is no need to be anticlerical.”165 As evidenced by their participation in and their views on education, law, local government, the press, and commerce, and in their responses to labour, women, and minorities, Young Scots and Nationalistes displayed, with important

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differences, a commitment to liberalism. Among the Nationalistes division was frequently apparent on the compatibility between liberalism and Catholicism: it was consistently Asselin and Fournier who championed the more liberal approach. Therefore, the relationship between the nationalists and their respective civil societies suggests that they were indeed liberal nationalists. These liberal nationalists reflected not only the distinct national characters of their civil societies but also the degree to which those societies were governed by liberal norms. Therefore both the descriptive and the normative aspects of civil society aid an understanding of the nationalism of the Young Scots and the Nationalistes. Yet greater emphasis was placed on liberalism in Scotland than in Quebec, thus distinguishing between “Liberal nationalists” and “liberal Nationalists.”

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Conclusion: Contrasting Liberal Nationalisms

The book has situated the emergence of contrasting liberal nationalists in Scotland and Quebec within the context of Britain’s political and economic empire (chapter 4), the British and Canadian states (chapters 5 and 6), and the civil societies of Scotland and Quebec (chapter 7). Their contrasting liberal nationalisms reflected the degree to which liberalism was embedded in these governing institutions. The practice of liberalism differed in the two contexts examined. Liberalism was differently embedded in each of these institutions: the Empire was considered decidedly more liberal when viewed from Scotland rather than French Canada; while the British and Canadian states were founded upon liberal settlements, their practice failed to adequately accommodate minority nations; and the influence of organized religion in Scotland and Quebec, and its ability to socially “cage” its members, affected the way in which liberalism was practiced within the respective civil societies. This conclusion will draw out the ways in which liberalism and nationalism were invoked by the Young Scots and Nationalistes, and the degree to which liberalism and nationalism were in service of each other. This discussion draws on the findings already established and suggests that the contrasting expression of liberal nationalism reveals two distinct faces, one that emphasized collectivity and one in which there was greater emphasis on individualism. To better contextualize the expression of these liberal nationalisms, the Young Scots and Nationalistes are compared with other nationalists active in Scotland and Quebec. Finally, some reflection on the legacy left by these nationalists is offered.

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two faces of liberal nationalism The figure of British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886, 1892–94) and the political philosophy he espoused loomed over both the Young Scots and the Nationalistes. The influence on the Young Scots was explicit: their initial motto, “For Gladstone and Scotland,” and their early campaigns to institute a “Gladstone Day” to commemorate his legacy made this clear. They found in Gladstone a politician who appeared to understand Scotland and, in his liberalism, a commitment to radical reform. Henri Bourassa was similarly influenced; however, for Bourassa, Gladstone’s appeal lay in his emphasis on the need for a stable constitutional tradition.1 Gladstone’s liberalism was a mix of pragmatism and idealism, yet it was also underlain with a conservative strain.2 The apparent contradictory nature of this philosophy allowed these very different liberal nationalists to champion Gladstonian liberalism and highlighted liberalism’s malleability. Indeed, throughout, the Young Scots and the Nationalistes differently sought to reconcile nationalism with liberalism. Young Scots’ branch syllabi frequently included the following two quotes from the Italian “liberal nationalist”3 Giuseppe Mazzini: “Men have organised political society, some solely on respect for the rights of the INDIVIDUAL, forgetting altogether the educational mission of society, others solely upon SOCIAL rights sacrificing the liberty and action of the individual”; “In labouring according to true principles for our Country we are labouring according to Humanity; our Country is the fulcrum of the lever which we are to wield for the common good. If we give up this fulcrum we run the risk of becoming useless to our Country and to Humanity.”4 These quotes are revealing: they suggest an attempt to reconcile the individualism of liberalism with the collectivism of nationalism, indicating that the Young Scots were conscious that their nationalism could and should be consistent with their liberalism and vice versa. The choice of Mazzini was entirely deliberate. An earlier generation of Liberals, such as James Bryce and John Morley, Liberals who had a direct influence on the Young Scots, had drawn similar conclusions.5 Moreover, it was perhaps their, and Gladstone’s, championing of the Italian national movement (Young Italy) that suggested the name of the Young Scots’ Society. Yet, there is irony since

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Gladstone was far from an idealistic Liberal in championing national movements; he gave his support only when the political order had irreparably broken down and would-be nationalist leaders had proved themselves capable of leadership.6 Nevertheless to Victorian, and later, Edwardian society, Gladstone was cast as the champion of oppressed (European) minorities. His famous addresses on the plight of the Bulgarians and the denunciation of Ottoman atrocities in 1876 had sealed this reputation.7 Mazzini’s anti-clericism did not endear him to the Nationalistes, particularly to the staunchly religious Bourassa and Héroux: Mazzini represented the revolutionary European liberalism from which Wilfrid Laurier had so carefully distanced himself and the Liberal Party. Yet the Nationalistes, too, sought to reconcile liberalism and nationalism. However, it was British Liberals whom they invoked, in particular “Little Englanders” such as Burke, Fox, Bright, and Gladstone, who placed little emphasis on empire and could therefore be called upon in their opposition to imperialism and militarism and in support of national minorities.8 There are competing conceptions of liberalism being invoked by Young Scots and Nationalistes here. Two versions concern us here: one argues in favour of equality between groups and another argues in favour of equality within groups.9 Both are required if nationalism is to be considered liberal. The Young Scots explicitly sought to reconcile them both, emphasizing both equality for groups (Scotland) and individuals. In doing so, they sought to square the particularism of nationalism with the universalism of liberalism. They expressed this in distinctly Mazzinian language The Young Scots Society bases its case for Home Rule on the principle of Equal Liberty. It believes in liberty not only for the individual, but for peoples and nations as well. If the individual is to make the most of his faculties and to do his best not only for himself but for his fellows, he must be allowed, nay encouraged, to follow his own bent, his own aspirations. As it is with individuals, so it is with peoples; and the Scottish people, differing in character, custom, and law from other peoples that make up the United Kingdom, must surely know their requirements best, and if they are to make their best contribution to the progress of humanity must be allowed to arrange their own affairs, to make and administer their own laws.10

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Among the Nationalistes, all were agreed on equality between groups. Henri Bourassa consistently invoked the language of liberty with reference to the Manitoba schools question, using the language of religious liberty and the liberty of British subjects.11 He expressed a similar sentiment, though in negative terms, when he stated that “To pursue a union of the two peoples of Canada, without mutual respect for their respective rights, is to build the nation on a fragile basis; it is to provide an element of ruin and destruction as a foundation stone.”12 However, there was less agreement on equality within groups. The Nationalistes sought to reconcile their political commitments and their devotion to the Catholic Church. Asselin and Fournier put nationalism before religion, since in their view the Church was a moral guide rather than as an object of adoration.13 In contrast, the devout Omer Héroux, whom Rumilly describes as “très religieux,”14 put religion before nationalism. It was Henri Bourassa who struggled most. Wilfrid Laurier referred to Bourassa as the “castor rouge,”15 it was perhaps a term of derision as Levitt suggests, yet it also captures something of the complexity of his views and his early activism, in which he adhered to both apparently contradictory doctrines, as a Rouge bent on the separation of Church and state, and as a Castor advocating the subordination of the state to the Church.16 He was in André Laurendeau’s view a “liberal ultramontane.”17 He combined a commitment to British-style liberalism with a devotion to the Catholic Church, and he was being perfectly consistent when he told Goldwin Smith “I take my theology from Rome but my politics from home.”18 Increasingly he was torn between the two. Hélène PelletierBaillargeon suggests that there was a familial aspect at play here: Bourassa was torn between the maternal and paternal sides of his family, between the republican and secular Papineaus and the ultramontane Bourassas.19 He increasingly gave greatest weight to his Catholic faith.20 That the Nationalistes were united in their Nationalism but divided by liberalism is best expressed by the following example. All five Nationalistes vigorously campaigned against Ontario’s Regulation 17. Yet they diverged in their perception of the struggle. Jules Fournier is a case in point: “he distinguished clearly between the question of language and that of religion, an uncommon position at the time.”21 This distinction allowed Fournier to conceive of a more inclusive nationalism, one that was willing to attempt to win

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Montreal’s growing Jewish community to the French cause and to open French schools to Jews. This conception brought Fournier into conflict with the anti-Semitic views of his colleague Armand Lavergne.22 Olivar Asselin similarly distinguished between language and religion. In contrast, for Bourassa, Lavergne, and Héroux there was no such distinction; this was a struggle to ensure both French and Catholic schooling. So while they presented a view of the French Canadian nation as synonymous with Catholicism, Olivar Asselin and Jules Fournier offered a more liberal conception of nation, one that was synonymous with “la culture française” or “la pensée française” but not the Catholic faith; this expressed, in Annette Hayward’s view, a “libéralisme nationaliste.”23 Olivar Asselin was sincere when he wrote, “While defending in every instance the right of my French fellow-citizens if infringed upon. I will always do the same for the rights of any other element of the population. This I consider the duty of any Canadian who has the internal peace and, therefore, the welfare of his country at heart.”24 These contrasting liberal nationalisms recall political theorist John Gray’s identification of “two faces of liberalism,” two seemingly irreconcilable currents in liberal thought: one places emphasis on universal individual rights, and the other places emphasis on particular group rights. In a similar vein “two faces of liberal nationalism” are suggested by this comparative study: the Young Scots sought to reconcile the promotion of individual rights and group rights; the Nationalistes were divided, ultimately placing greater attention on group rights despite the more individualist positions adopted by Asselin and Fournier. Crudely, the former placed an emphasis on liberalism (“Liberal nationalists”), while the latter emphasized nationalism (“liberal Nationalists”). This was, in effect, the result of two distinctive processes during this period. In Scotland there was effectively a nationalization of liberalism; dominant liberalism was acquiring a more prominent national character. Through its support for Home Rule nationalism provided a means for the Liberal Party to maintain support, while in Quebec there was a liberalization of nationalism, nationalists sought to frame their demands within liberalism. As a result of both processes nationalism was adopting a more liberal tone. In other words, nationalism is labile; cleaving to liberalism means that it provides much of nationalism’s content.25 This was an era in which liberalism itself was being redefined, a result of the collectivist demands being placed upon it. This was, in

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part, the result of a broadening of the franchise, which meant that its appeal could no longer be confined to the middle classes. In the UK, the Third Reform Act in 1885 had extended the franchise to all-male householders and tenants; following its passage there were demands for inclusion from partially excluded (working class) and entirely excluded (women) groups, together with minority nations (Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) that sought recognition of their national distinctiveness. In addition, the demand for political rights was accompanied by a demand to extend citizenship beyond the civil and political spheres to include social rights.26 The resulting “new liberalism” sought to address social ills through concerted state action. In Canada and Quebec this, too, was an era in which the electorate was expanded. The federal franchise, based on property ownership, had been expanded in 1885. However its interpretation was at the discretion of provinces. Indeed provinces had their own voting regulations. In Quebec, between 1871 and 1912, and as a result of various voting reform measures, the electorate expanded from to 14.8 to 23.9 percent of the total population.27 In Canada, British new liberalism and a similarly oriented US progressivism were also influential. Yet nationalists in Scotland and Quebec differed in their conception of democracy. The Young Scots sought to address the newly established mass democracy. They established branches throughout Scotland in an effort to attract young men and women to progressive politics. Their politics were in part a response to the inefficient way in which social legislation was administered in Scotland, a key issue for radical Liberals and socialists alike. Home Rule became a sine qua non for the social reformers of the YSS. In contrast the Nationalistes, particularly Henri Bourassa, addressed their appeal to the political elite of both French and English-speaking Canada. Their “educational campaign” reflected this bias: greater emphasis was placed on the formation of newspapers, themselves directed not at a mass readership but at men of influence, rather than through the formation of branches of the Ligue nationaliste. Bourassa remained deeply suspicious of mass democracy.28 The examination of the Young Scots and Nationalistes undertaken here suggests that liberalism and nationalism were frequently in the service of each other. An anonymous Young Scot was explicit when he expressed the belief that nationalism was necessary in order for liberalism to succeed:

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If Scottish Nationalism, in alliance with Liberalism, is to succeed, not only in maintaining the electoral predominance of the [Liberal] party … but if it is to succeed in actively enlisting Scottish youth in the ranks of the party, it must devote itself more and more to the cultivation of the national idea.29 The historian Yvan Lamonde suggests that, in Quebec, “This is the time … when the rise of French-Canadian nationalism crossed swords with liberalism.”30 Among Nationalistes, liberalism and nationalism were often mutually reinforcing rather than mutually exclusive. Olivar Asselin was explicit in describing his nationalism: “We are Liberals in the matter of minority rights, and Progressists in economic and social matters. And it is that opposition to [British] Imperialism and Annexation [by the United States], that Liberalism and that Progressism, which make up our brand of nationalism.”31 The Young Scots and Nationalistes sought ways in which liberalism could better accommodate the interests of Scots and French Canadians. Therefore, for liberalism to work better it had to take a national form. This stance characterized their engagement with empire, state, and civil society – political variables found to have the greatest bearing on their mobilization during this period.32 Chapter 4 established that the Young Scots and the Nationalistes had very different experiences of the British Empire. It was imperial policies, political in nature, that brought both groups into being and that continued to shape their development. This was reflected in their response to the South African War, tariff reform, imperial unity, and naval re-armament. The Young Scots’ response was liberal, invoking free speech, free trade, and pacifism, while the Nationalistes’ response was nationalist: these were encroachments on Canadian sovereignty. These imperial issues asked questions of Liberals and liberalism in Scotland and the UK; nationalists in Quebec, in turn, invoked these UK Liberal responses, underlining the fact that Britain’s North Atlantic Empire was not just a political and commercial empire; it also provided a space in which liberal ideas were diffused, with the result that both sets of nationalists shared a similar set of influences. Chapters 5 and 6 examined the nationalists’ political projects. The British unitary state and the Canadian federal state were products of liberal settlements that accommodated minority nations through the operation of federalism, broadly defined.33 Yet these settlements

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were proving inadequate in accommodating Scotland and Quebec. In response, Young Scots and Nationalistes demanded an “equal hearing”34 for their concerns to have the same legitimacy as those of the majority. Mere parliamentarianism was not sufficient; there had to be a better fit between political institutions and popular sovereignty. The absence of appropriate political institutional mechanisms meant that there was an effective denial of the popular will of the Scottish and French Canadian peoples. These were state-reforming nationalists, which contra Gellner sought not independence but intermediate solutions. Moreover, these were not movements for national unification as other liberal nationalists in the nineteenth century had been.35 Rather, political and cultural space was sought for Scotland and French Canada within existing states. More specifically, the Young Scots demanded a Scottish Parliament within a British federation, while the Nationalistes demanded that the Canadian federation should become avowedly consociational. The Young Scots’ demand for federation and the Nationalistes’ demand for consociation were both means by which they sought to renegotiate the distinct status of, respectively, Scotland within Britain and of French Canadians within Canada. Neither grouping questioned the basis of the prevailing settlements; instead they sought their reform: a federal union rather than an incorporating union in Britain, and an avowedly consociational federation in Canada. Both used history to support their claims: the Treaty of Union of 1707 and the British North America Act of 1867, on which the British and Canadian states were respectively founded, were interpreted, with some differences, as formal agreements between sovereign parties, Scotland and England in one case, and French and British Canadians in the other. To the Nationalistes this interpretation had symbolic importance: to dispel forever the ignominy of conquest from the French Canadian psyche. Bourassa expressed this best: “There are neither masters nor valets; there are neither conquerors nor conquered ones: there are two partners whose partnership was entered into upon fair and well defined lines.”36 It is worth emphasizing a crucial difference in the governance of Scotland and Quebec: while Quebec possessed a legislative assembly, Scotland did not. This fact had quite different implications for the subsequent development of nationalism in Scotland and Quebec. With the failure of binationalism and the fallout from the 1917 conscription crisis (see below), Quebec nationalists increasingly turned

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their attention toward the Quebec’s Legislative Assembly rather than the federal Parliament. This tendency culminated in the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. In contrast the lack of such an assembly in Scotland, despite the Young Scots’ best efforts, undoubtedly hampered the development of political nationalism. In James Kellas’s words, a provincial assembly such as Quebec’s could “represent and negotiate in a way that Scotland could not.”37 Similarly, Tom Nairn contends that “a parliament is not in fact just another institution in civil society, devoted to the completion or extension of ‘low politics’ … it implies a qualitative shift to the ‘high politics’ of last resort responsibility and extra-local status.”38 This is true; yet the importance of low politics should not be underestimated, not least since considerable autonomy was retained in the civil societies of Scotland and Quebec, the subject of chapter 7. Chapter 7 located the Young Scots and Nationalistes within their distinctive civil societies. The chapter drew attention to the degree to which liberalism underpinned civil society in Scotland and Quebec, since, as Jonathan Hearn notes, civil society is itself “a primary shaper of social values.”39 Liberalism’s relationship with the Church was key here and was revealed through an examination of debates surrounding the educational and legal systems, local government, business and commerce, the press, and the place of labour, women, and immigrant groups. The Catholic Church continued to have a powerful presence in Quebec’s civil society; it sought to maintain and extend its influence among existing and new groups and institutions. Divisions were apparent among the Nationalistes on the question of the role of the Catholic Church in French Canadian society. In Scotland, Presbyterianism continued to exert a dominant influence; however, it was no longer the monopoly of a single Church, and it allowed for a greater degree of institutional pluralism. The result was that liberalism was more firmly established in Scotland and more fragile in Quebec. The character of the nationalism of the YSS and Nationalistes was, in part, a reflection of the degree to which these civil societies were governed by liberal norms. This configuration gave rise to different forms of liberal nationalism: in Scotland nationalism was often subordinate to Liberalism, in Quebec liberalism was often subordinate to Nationalism. The result: emphasis was placed on liberalism in Scotland and on nationalism in Quebec. Labelling the nationalists respectively, “Liberal nationalists” and “liberal Nationalists” captures something of the

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flavour of their nationalism. This comparison, therefore, suggests that a prior commitment to liberalism exerts a moderating influence on nationalism. In Scotland and Quebec liberalism was found in the norms and institutions that governed these societies. The strength and weakness not only of their nationalism, but also of their liberalism, can be related to the political institutions that governed empire, state, and civil society. It suggests that the form that nationalism takes is attributable to the nature of the regime. However the argument is not that liberalism acts as a container of nationalism40 but rather that a prior commitment to liberalism exerts a moderating influence, whether as the result of the liberalization of nationalism or the nationalization of liberalism – producing distinctively liberal nationalisms. While liberalism was more firmly institutionalized in Scotland than in Quebec, its institutionalization ensured that conflict was diffused through society41 and that nationalism took a moderate form. Comparing the Young Scots and Nationalistes with other nationalists active in Scotland and Quebec during this period can further highlight the degree to which their nationalism was liberal.

“ l i b e ra l n at i o n a l i s t s ” The YSS was the largest and the most influential of the nationalist groups to emerge at this time, but it was not the only one. This era witnessed the growth of a number of much smaller nationalist groupings. In a sense, through its close connection with the Liberal Party, the YSS acted as a bridge between these fringe organizations and the political mainstream. Several members of these groups were also members or supporters of the YSS, and the journals that they published provided news on the YSS. By comparing the YSS with these groups a clearer picture emerges of its liberal nationalism. Hanham contends that the nationalist fringe was “almost entirely a matter for a few hundred individual enthusiasts, of whom those with sufficient money to sponsor a journal were the most important.”42 Five such individuals were prominent: Charles Waddie, Theodore Napier, John Wilson, Thomas Drummond Wanliss, and the Hon. Stuart Erskine, and each ran a specific journal: respectively, the Scottish Nationalist (1903), the Fiery Cross (1901–12), the Scottish Patriot (1903–06), The Thistle (1909–18), and Guth na Bliadhna (the Voice of the Year) (1904–25). Their concerns were various.

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Charles Waddie was a founder of the Scottish Home Rule Association (SHRA), which had met with considerable success when it was launched in 1886 and which attracted support among Scottish Liberals as well as Labour leader Kier Hardie and Crofter leader G.B. Clark. During this period, however, while still in existence, it had long since ceased active campaigning; in the words of The Young Scot: “Mr Waddie and the Scottish Home Rule Association are still alive but we can hardly add that they are ‘kicking.’”43 Its journal, the Scottish Nationalist, ceased publication after only a short period of operation in 1903. In contrast, Theodore Napier’s Fiery Cross was arguably the most colourful of the nationalist journals to appear during this period, through its support for Jacobitism and the Stuart claim to the throne.44 On a more practical level, it had supported the Boers during the South African War and proposed a federal solution to the demand for a Scottish Parliament. The Australian-born Napier dressed in Highland attire and commemorated Jacobite anniversaries, including Culloden, Glencoe, and the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.45 Other nationalists were embarrassed by his antics. Charles Waddie wrote, “Mr Napier’s eccentricities have done incalculable harm to the cause of Scottish Home Rule.”46 Glasgow businessman John Wilson published the monthly journal the Scottish Patriot, which carried the subtitle A Monthly Review for the Scot at Home and the Scot Abroad. It was a keen supporter of the Glasgow-based Scottish Patriotic Association (SPA), formed in 1900. Both were largely concerned with cultural matters. The Scottish Patriot sought to promote Scottish songs and games and to celebrate the exploits of Scots abroad; the SPA launched campaigns to promote the teaching of Scottish history in schools and to establish a chair in Scottish History at the University of Glasgow. In 1904 Wilson launched the short-lived Scottish National League to give these concerns a more political dimension, declaring that where necessary it would field its own candidates.47 The Scottish Patriot and the SPA had links with the YSS: Wilson and the SPA’s secretary, J.M. Crosthwaite, were members of the YSS.48 Crosthwaite, in particular, was a leading Young Scot, holding the positions of secretary (1907– 12) and treasurer (1907-09). The Scottish Patriot sought to provide a forum for patriotic groups, including the political YSS and the cultural SPA, together with a number of Scottish cultural associations active throughout the Empire. This suggests that there was an

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overlap in the membership of cultural and political organizations; they were not discrete entities with distinct memberships. The rather nasty ethnic side to articles carried by the Scottish Patriot was commented upon in the previous chapter. The final two journals were longer lasting. Hanham suggests that “the chief merit of [T.D. Wanliss’s] The Thistle was simply that it survived for ten years and appeared throughout that time regularly every month with news of Scottish organizations,”49 while the quarterly Guth na Bliadhna was notable as the only one published at least partially in Gaelic. Although not a native speaker, its publisher, Ruaraidh Erskine of Marr, was a passionate supporter of the Gaelic revival, which had been underway since the 1870s; itself inspired by the success of the Gaelic revival in Ireland.50 These groups took issue with the timidity of the YSS and criticized it for not being nationalist enough. The Scottish Patriot was critical of YSS General Secretary John Gulland’s refusal to take a stand on the king’s title.51 Its adherence to Liberalism was also taken to task. John Wilson, The Scottish Patriot’s editor, suggested, “if the Young Scots were to take up a little more of this national spirit in their programme, their membership would increase by leaps and bounds … Liberalism can look after itself. Nationalism is a higher aim.”52 Napier’s Fiery Cross questioned their “Back to Gladstone” slogan, suggesting that Gladstone and his disciple, John Morley, had wavered over the question of Scottish Home Rule and that therefore “the Young Scots should get beyond Gladstone and Morley if they are to do much for Scotland and Liberty; they must get back to Wallace and Bruce, and aim at obtaining a political Bannockburn.”53 It argued that what was needed was a body that would unite Scots behind the cause of Scottish nationalism, regardless of their political complexion: “Our only objection to that Society was its party attitude being avowedly a branch of the Liberal party instead of being purely a Scottish National Party, which should include not only Liberals, but any Unionists or Conservatives willing to join.”54 Similarly, The Thistle believed that the YSS Home Rule policy would come to naught given that “it allows its policy to be guided by the Scottish wing of the English Liberal party.” Scotland would only be listened to once it had formed a national party, as the Irish had done.55 For their part, the Young Scots opposed the “backward-looking and defensive” Scottish nationalism exhibited in these journals.56 These were the nationalists disdainfully referred to by Hugh

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MacDiarmid in his classic poem “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle”: “And O! to think that there are members o’ St Andrew’s Societies sleepin’ soon, Wha tae the papers wrote afore they bedded On regimental buttons or buckled shoon, Or use o’ England where the UK’s meent.”57 Young Scots viewed them as marginal to the real issues facing Scotland: Nationalism in Scotland has too often bordered on the eccentric. The word has come to suggest a group of posturing patriots on the field of Bannockburn, worshiping at a shrine of mixed memories. A national party to be an instrument of service to Scotland today, must eschew the impracticalities with which the field of politics is strewn, and devote itself untiringly and unsparingly to a constructive programme.58 Moreover, J.M. Hogge provided this sober appreciation of the Battle of Bannockburn on its sexcentenary in 1914, an anniversary other nationalists had commemorated in much more euphoric terms: Bannockburn is only worth celebrating if what it achieved is translated into the modern political life of Scotland. Scotland cannot be created by reviewing the kilt and sporran but by imbuing Scotsmen today with the same spirit of political independence, which inspired Bruce to successfully resist the pretensions of Edward. When Scotland has overthrown the pretensions of Westminster to control her destinies we can find time to mark our advance by military milestones if you like, but let’s get our feet on the road to a Parliament of our own first.59 The Society itself spawned other nationalist organizations, which retained their Liberal character. The International Scots Home Rule League (ISHRL) was formed in 1912 at the initiative of F.J. Robertson, convener of the YSS Parliamentary Committee (1907–10), and with the support of Hector MacPherson, former editor of the Edinburgh Evening News and an early patron of the YSS. There is no evidence to suggest that its establishment had been arranged by “Liberal party managers,” as Hanham claims60 – rather it sought “to make the Scots Home Rule movement a non-party one,”61 although its sympathies were clear: “A Scottish parliament on the lines advocated by the Liberal party.” To do this, it sought “to unite the Scots Home

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Rulers throughout the world, in promoting the establishment of a National Parliament in Scotland.”62 In 1913 Robertson visited North America, seeking support among the Scottish expatriate community in Canada and the United States. The mission appears have had some success with the formation of branches in each of the cities he visited.63 However, there is no record of how long or shortlived these branches were. Its journal, The Scottish Nation (1913–17), provided a forum for the wider national movement; attracting articles from YSS stalwarts such as J.M. Hogge and Walter Murray; J.M. Crosthwaite contributed poetry. It seems to have had a measure of success with a reported circulation of ten thousand.64 The ISHRL established a “Scottish Nation Club” through which it secured the endorsement of many of Scotland’s leading civic leaders for its cause. J.M. Hogge had suggested its creation in order “to record from month to month the names and addresses of all who are prepared to pledge themselves in the constituency where they vote, to give such vote to the candidate who will compel the passing into law of a Home Rule Act for Scotland.”65 Placing the Young Scots within the context of contemporaneous nationalist groups reveals something of the contrasting strategies adopted in the pursuit of Home Rule: while the Young Scots maintained that it was an independent organization, it was chided for its close ties to the Liberal Party by those who favoured a non-party approach, under the naive belief that appeals to national sentiment would be sufficient to achieve Home Rule.66 The Young Scots were distinguished from other nationalists during this era in another way: through their determination to ensure that their nationalism was compatible with, and informed by, liberal principles. While many Liberal Party members argued that the maintenance of a Liberal government should take precedence over Scottish Home Rule, and among the largely cultural nationalist fringe groups, like the Scottish Patriotic Association, nationalism and the attainment of Home Rule was placed before party considerations, the Young Scots promoted both. These were “Liberal nationalists” who sought to combine adherence to Liberalism, broadly defined, with a devotion to Home Rule. Liberalism mediated their nationalism: Home Rule was not sought as an end, rather it was a means of attaining a social Liberal agenda; their nationalism was a means of securing Liberal reforms for Scotland. Nevertheless, there were links among these groups, often on the basis of their shared commitment to the creation of a

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Scottish Parliament. In 1914 these disparate groups, together with the YSS and the ISHRL, came together to celebrate the sexcentenary of the Battle of Bannockburn. The event attracted some fifty thousand people.67 Scottish nationalists were optimistic that they would soon be celebrating another victory: the passage of legislation.

“liberal

nationalists”

The Nationalistes were not the sole carriers of nationalism to emerge in Quebec during this period. Other individuals and organizations, most with close links to the Catholic Church sought to promote a rather different vision of Quebec. Two individuals were prominent in the promotion of ultramontane nationalism: Jules-Paul Tardivel and his son-in-law Joseph Bégin. Both espoused a conservative nationalism centred on French Canada. Their views were expressed through their newspapers, Tardivel’s Quebec City-based La Verité (1881– 1923) and Bégin’s Montreal-based La Croix (1903–37). The readership of these newspapers was largely confined to Church circles and, therefore, no match for the masscirculation newspapers. The circulation of La Verité was just 2,000 in 1892, while La Croix’s circulation reached 4,200 in 1905, falling back to 3,500 in 1916.68 Tardivel was born in the United States, the son of a French father and an English mother. Educated at the Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe in Quebec he devoted himself to the promotion of an ultramontane nationalism within his adopted French Canada.69 Tardivel supported Bourassa’s opposition to Canadian participation in the South African War. They engaged in a protracted correspondence in which Tardivel offered La Verité as a platform for Bourassa, and he discussed the possibility of forming an independent group to promote anti-imperialist ideas.70 Yet the two had opposing views of French Canada’s place in Canada. In 1895 Tardivel had published a novel, Pour la Patrie, which advocated the creation of an independent French state on the banks of the Saint Lawrence. He therefore took issue with the Ligue and Le Nationaliste’s promotion of pan-Canadian nationalism and offered this rebuke: “Our nationalism is French-Canadian nationalism. The nation that we want to see established … is the French Canadian nation.”71 Bourassa responded in kind: Our nationalism is Canadian nationalism, based on the duality of races … The nation which we want to see develop is the

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Canadian nation, composed of French Canadians and English Canadians, that is to say two elements separated by language and religion … but united by a common attachment to a common country.72 The Association catholique de la jeunesse canadienne-française (ACJC) provided a vehicle for the promotion of an overtly Catholic nationalism. The initial impetus for the creation of the ACJC came from students and teachers at Collège Sainte-Marie in Montreal. There, in June 1903, students, led by Joseph Versailles and the Jesuit teacher Samuel Bellevance, organized a conference in support of a campaign across the collèges classiques to establish the CarillonSacré-Coeur as the national emblem of French Canada.73 The success of this conference, which attracted almost a hundred students from across Quebec, prompted calls for the creation of a more formal organization. The ACJC was formally constituted on 13 March 1904, providing an organization, under the auspices of the Catholic Church, for French Canadian youth in Quebec.74 It was hierarchical, reflecting the nature of the Church itself, with an appointed chaplain overseeing the work of individual study groups. These study groups had a federal relationship to the governing central committee and they were often formed from existing debating societies within Quebec’s classical colleges. Its formal structure was in marked contrast to the Ligue’s paper organization. It also issued a monthly newsletter, Le Semeur, and organized annual conferences, addressed by leading lay Catholics such as Jules-Paul Tardivel and Henri Bourassa, at which its ideology was elaborated.75 The new organization attracted the support of a number of young clerics including abbés Lionel Groulx of the Séminaire de Valleyfield and Émile Chartier of the Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe, who saw an opportunity to emulate the social Catholic mission of the French Association catholique de la jeunesse française, which had sought the creation of an enlightened lay leadership within the Catholic Church. They feared that both Catholicism and the French Canadian nation were under threat from the twin forces of secularism and materialism. In their view Quebec was experiencing a “dual religious and national crisis” to which French Canadians must respond. Groulx accused Church leaders of complacency in the face of these dangers. So the ACJC actively campaigned for the “moral regeneration” of Quebec. This regeneration was to be accomplished by infusing the young elite

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of the classical colleges with a social mission to reconstruct society in line with the teachings of the Church.76 This was an intrinsically defensive mission, based on a conservative view of the world. The ACJC contrasted markedly with the Ligue. Its grassroots organization stood in contrast with the Ligue’s hesitant attempts to organize branches, ultimately preferring to focus on the establishment of newspapers to diffuse their ideas.77 It stood as a religious counterpart to the Ligue: its overtly religious and cultural mission contrasted with the largely secular and political concerns of the Ligue. While the Ligue put nationalism before religion, the ACJC put religion before nationalism.78 Moreover, Michael Behiels suggests that Mgr Paul Bruchési, the archbishop of Montreal, supported the ACJC as a means of providing French Canadian youth with an alternative to the secular and politically orientated concerns of the Ligue nationaliste.79 Yet, in reality, the ACJC frequently entered the political arena: it campaigned in support of French Canadian schooling outside Quebec for the use of French in the federal civil service and against the Naval Bill.80 These were the very issues that the Nationalistes had made their own. Despite these key differences Olivar Asselin welcomed the ACJC’s formation and endorsed its objective to give Catholicism a social mission. He made a point of emphasizing that the French-Canadian patriotism espoused by the ACJC was compatible with a larger Canadian patriotism.81 In a similar vein, Cardinal Bégin, the archbishop of Quebec, established L’Action sociale (later L’Action catholique). The first issue of the Quebec City-based journal appeared on 21 December 1907, with Omer Héroux and Georges Pelletier among its editors. Although nominally independent, in practice it displayed both a castor and nationalist flavour82 and expressed the views of the archdiocese of Quebec. Unlike the archbishop of Montreal, Bruchési, who was a close friend of Laurier’s, Bégin was much more critical of the Liberal federal and provincial administrations. In its first few years of existence L’Action sociale shared the same causes as Le Nationaliste, in part, due to its writers, Héroux and L.-K. Laflamme, with their associations with Bourassa and the Ligue, yet even then it displayed a tendency to lecture.83 Latterly, Jules Fournier, while not unsympathetic to their cause, was scathing of its sermonizing: We say to ourselves: those people are of a narrow mindedness that makes one shudder; they are intolerant, clumsy, and unpleasant. Most of the time, frankly, they even look stupid; but they are

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committed to noble ideas and they are sincere; in the absence of intelligence, they at least have a conscience and honour.84 Fournier also engaged in a similarly critical dialogue with both La Verité and La Croix.85 Through the formation of Catholic action groups such as the ACJC and L’Action Sociale, key elements within the Catholic Church sought to more directly influence the lives of their members. Specifically, they sought to foster a Catholic social mission that would provide a bulwark against the materialism fostered by laissez-faire capitalism.86 Above all, the religiosity of these individuals and organizations distinguished them from the primarily secular concerns of the Ligue nationaliste. Bourassa sought to reassure Tardivel that Le Nationaliste did not seek to replicate the religious concerns of La Verité, it sought a wider audience: “La Verité is above all a religious newspaper. It only reaches a particular audience and is necessarily restrained.”87 However, this is not to say that the Ligue eschewed Catholicism, far from it; many of their concerns, particularly in the social realm, had a moral tone derived from their Catholicism. Nevertheless, the Ligue consistently sought to put nationalism before religion. As a result, its largely secular stance attracted criticism from overtly ultramontane nationalists. Joseph Bégin, the editor of La Croix, accused Olivar Asselin and Le Nationaliste of freemasonry and atheism.88 There were also links between members of the Ligue and these groups. Jules Fournier had been associated with the ACJC.89 Omer Héroux was Tardivel’s son-in-law. When he became uneasy with the direction taken by Le Nationaliste, he assumed the role of editor of La Verité and later became an editor of L’Action sociale.90 The ACJC actively supported Lavergne’s campaign for bilingualism in the federal civil service.91 Although they disagreed on a number of key issues, such as the political place of French Canadians within Canada, the place of the Catholic Church within Quebec society, and the appropriate response to industrialism, the Nationalistes shared with these other individuals and groups a profound adherence to the French language and, with qualifications, Catholicism.

epilogue and legacy The outbreak of the First World War had a marked effect on the political fortunes of the YSS and the Nationalistes and their respective liberal nationalisms. In Scotland, Home Rule was put on hold,

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and the YSS suspended its political campaign. At war’s end the YSS struggled to adapt to the new political scene marked by the war and to the growing popularity of the Labour Party, factors that also contributed to the breakup of the coalition of interests that was the Liberal Party. As with the Boer War before it, the First World War brought forth determined opposition from pacifists within the YSS. Roland Muirhead, the Rev. James Barr, John Kinloch, Robert Shanks, and Walter Murray had all opposed the Boer War and were equally critical of this war. The introduction of conscription and the war settlement were the chief concerns. During the war, Muirhead, Barr, Kinloch, and Shanks became active members in the Scottish Federation of the Union for the Democratic Control of Foreign Policy (UDC). Muirhead formed a branch of the UDC in his hometown of Bridge of Weir. Although the UDC was a cross-party organization, it drew its leading members from the ranks of the Labour Party and the radical wing of the Liberal Party: its chairman was J. Ramsay MacDonald, future Labour prime minister, and its secretary was the crusading Liberal journalist E.D. Morel. Its members were united in their opposition to the war not on the basis of pacifism but, as the name suggests, through their support for the democratic control of foreign policy. It was believed that future war could be prevented through the application of this principle.92 Marvin Swartz argues that the UDC facilitated the transition of many Liberals to the Labour Party and in particular to the Independent Labour Party (ILP), which became the most important political party in opposition to the war following the Labour Party’s support for the government in August 1914.93 The ILP’s antiwar stance appealed to radicals who had long held pacifist sympathies and who supported the struggles of national minorities. The shared opposition to war and imperialism by socialists and radical Liberals allowed for joint campaigns to be waged and contributed to the defection of Liberals to the ILP.94 The YSS had stood in determined opposition to the emerging Labour movement. On the one hand, it had dismissed it as a “fad”: “Workers should remember that at the present moment there is a determined effort being made to break up the progressive party into groups, not for the benefit of the workers, but to advance the political theories and fads of politicians.”95 Workers were urged to keep faith with the Liberal Party: “All who desire the greatest good of the greatest number, must seek not the destruction of the present economy but

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its advancement, and this can be accomplished by standing shoulder to shoulder under the well-tried banner of Liberalism.”96 On the other hand it had sought to engage with the ILP. Thomas Graham recalled that in Selkirk “the Young Scots’ Society were always ready to accord the ILP an opportunity to debate.”97 This was equally true in Partick, where the YSS and the ILP regularly debated. Many Young Scots had close links with the emerging labour movement. Roland Muirhead, an early member of the YSS, was also a socialist. He had converted his family’s tannery business into a cooperative. Together with Tom Johnston, in 1906 he had been a founding director of the weekly socialist newspaper Forward. Like others with strong Labour sympathies in the YSS, such as the Rev. James Barr and John L. Kinloch, he was drawn to the ILP’s anti-war stance. The result was that during the war and in its immediate aftermath several leading Young Scots joined the ILP. Kinloch (1914), Muirhead (1918), and Barr (1920) all became members of the ILP. The Scottish poet Christopher Grieve (Hugh MacDiarmid) made a similar journey. He captured the excitement that the Labour movement held for many in this period when he spoke of feeling himself “shipwrecked on hidden rocks of implacable liberalism and nonconformity suddenly in bright seas of labourist activity.”98 Moreover, as espoused by the ILP, socialism proved itself especially attractive to these advanced Liberals who had grown disillusioned with the Liberal Party, not just on the war question but on a range of other questions. The Liberal Party’s partisan stance to the emerging Labour movement and its concerns had created disquiet. In contrast with England, the Liberal Party in Scotland had reached no electoral accommodation with Labour. The Scottish Workers Representation Council (SWRC) had been a failure in comparison to its English counterpart, the Labour Representation Council (LRC). Liberal dominance and the Labour movement’s organizational weakness saw to that. Organizationally, Labour in Scotland was peculiar: “the unions were untypically weak and the socialist societies were untypically strong.”99 In part, it was also a question of timing; the SLA only considered a pact with Labour after Chamberlain had launched his ill-fated tariff reform campaign and Liberal dominance had effectively been re-established.100 Other factors ensured that the transition to the ILP for radical Liberals was a smooth one. The adoption of the temperance cause by a large number of ILP members meant that there were no moral

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impediments to strong prohibitionists, such as Barr, joining.101 Indeed, many of the policies that were the bedrock of radical Liberalism, like Scottish Home Rule and land reform, were taken up by the ILP, while ILP policies such as railway nationalization and housing reform had been discussed and endorsed by Young Scots. In the context of Glasgow, Joan Smith argues that Liberalism’s very dominance meant that its concerns had infused the emerging Labour movement: “[M]ost Glasgow working men believed in Free Trade, the iniquities of the House of Lords and all other hereditary positions, loathed landlordism, believed in fairness and the rights of small nations and in democracy and the will of the people.”102 The origins of the socialist movement in Glasgow lay in the campaign for land reform. These continuities between Liberal and Labour beliefs contributed to the growing belief that the future of radicalism lay not with the Liberal Party, but with the Labour Party. The Labour Party was better placed to give expression to these beliefs since it reached a wider social base, one which the Liberals in Scotland had closed themselves from. In return the ILP was grateful to receive middle-class recruits; it brought them a degree of respectability with which to woo middle-class voters.103 Arguably, then, the transition from the YSS to the ILP was a relatively smooth one. However, crucial to recruits such as Muirhead and Barr had been the ILP’s unequivocal support for Scottish Home Rule. In Canada, the outbreak of the First World War, at least initially, had surprisingly little impact; the country was preoccupied by the schooling crisis in Ontario. Like the Boer War, however, before long it raised questions about the form that Canada’s contribution should take. Divisions were soon apparent within Canada, falling largely along the familiar French/English fault line, but divisions were also apparent among the Nationalistes themselves. Bourassa gave initial support to the war effort. From the outset Lavergne sought to link French Canadians’ participation with their right to French schooling in Ontario: “If we are asked to go and fight for England, we reply: ‘Let us have our schools!’”104 This was a theme the Nationalistes continued to return to throughout the war. However, the intervention of the Church in support of the war effort brought swift condemnation from Olivar Asselin. At the behest of the Borden government the Quebec bishops issued a joint pastoral letter on 23 September 1914, which endorsed the government’s war policies and the dispatch of Canadian troops to Europe. This was too much

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for Asselin, writing in L’Action he objected to their intervention on a purely political matter. Moreover, given that the intervention had taken the form of a mandement, or religious instruction, there was the sense that the bishops’ pronouncement was to be accepted without debate. He also took issue with the Church’s historically loyalist position more generally. His attack on the Church continued in 1915, this time singling out L’Action sociale that had since the bishops’ initial intervention let loose an “avalanche of cretinotheological” bad prose on the critics of the government’s war policies.105 Asselin was not motivated by a hatred of the clergy but rather by what he perceived as an abuse of its power.106 Bourassa’s views on the war began to cohere. He argued that Canada’s military obligations reached no further than its own territory. Although he acknowledged that Canada’s ties to both Britain and France meant that their survival was in its vital interest, Canada should be realistic about what it could and could not do.107 Bourassa’s objections to the Great War also took on a decidedly more moral tone than his political objections to Canadian participation in the South African War. He endorsed the Pope’s plea for peace.108 Bourassa found common cause with the Union for the Democratic Control of Foreign Policy, in which several Young Scots participated; he corresponded with it throughout the war.109 In contrast, Olivar Asselin’s decision not only to endorse the war effort but also to actively participate was particularly surprising. He volunteered to raise a French Canadian battalion, which he did on 26 November 1915. Many of his Nationaliste friends were unable to explain his action.110 Asselin, himself, sought to offer an explanation for his actions in a pamphlet entitled Pourquoi je m’enrôle. He offered several reasons for his decision but gave greatest weight to these: it was a war to defend British institutions and to ensure the survival of France and Belgium. Asselin was adamant that his decision to enlist did not imply an acceptance of Canada’s imperial obligation. Interestingly, he had initially sought to enlist in the French army. Moreover, Asselin had also been eager to ensure that there were French Canadian battalions in existence. But the intensely personal nature of his decision meant that few followed his lead.111 Borden, Laurier, and Sam Hughes, the minister of the Militia, who were eager to have such a prominent French Canadian recruit, seized upon his action. Much to Asselin’s frustration, however, it was several months before he made it to the frontline. Hughes was content

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to have “captured Asselin,” “one of the editors of Bourassa’s journal.”112 Hughes had previously sought to lure Armand Lavergne into the military by offering him the command of a battalion. Hughes’s tactic had backfired. Lavergne refused and in an open letter cited the denial of a voice to Canada in imperial affairs and the denial to Franco-Ontarians of the right to be schooled in their mother tongue as his reasons.113 British-origin Canadians were the first to enroll. By the end of 1915 more than 60 percent of recruits were British-born. French Canadians were the least likely to enroll. Several reasons explain this reluctance. French Canadians felt little loyalty to the Empire or even to France. Moreover, their rights were under siege in Ontario. The ongoing campaign against Ontario’s Regulation 17 undermined attempts to enlist French Canadians. The poor participation rates of French Canadians can also be explained by the nature of the Canadian militia itself. In practice the militia was an English Canadian institution. Its officer corps was overwhelmingly British in origin, a reflection of the fact that English was both the language of training and command. Little attempt had been made to make it attractive to French Canadians through, for example, the incorporation of French Canadian traditions.114 This reluctance to enlist and a general falling away of recruitment across Canada prompted calls among English Canadians that the only course open to the government was to introduce conscription. Henri Bourassa rejected that compulsion was either necessary or warranted; rather he believed that the Canadian contribution was already sufficient. Borden sought to create a national government with conscription as a condition of membership. Formed in October 1917, the Union government attracted the support of renegade Liberals; however, it was formed without the support of Sir Wilfrid Laurier – the Liberal leader was unwilling to leave Quebec to Bourassa and the Nationalistes. The 1917 federal election confirmed Canada’s linguistic split. Laurier’s decision ensured that Quebec overwhelmingly returned to the Liberal fold: the Liberals secured sixty-two of its sixty-five seats. Elsewhere, English Canadians rallied to Borden.115 The imposition of conscription further divided the country. When conscription was made law in August 1917 riots broke out in Montreal. In March 1918 a riot broke out in Quebec City. The army intervened, it imposed martial law and fired on the crowd, killing five civilians and injuring dozens more. Moreover, conscription proved

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to be a failure: only 19,050 Quebecers were successfully conscripted, 18,827 successfully evaded conscription.116 The YSS’s wartime suspension of its political campaign meant its future direction remained in doubt. Muirhead recalled: In 1918 toward the close of the Great War a meeting of members of the YSS was held in Glasgow, convened by Thomas Lochhead, Honorary General Secretary. A number of members were absent including the President, Kenneth MacIver, who had met a soldier’s death in France. The members who were instrumental in having the meeting called were anxious that the YSS should in future confine its object to the demand for Scottish selfgovernment instead of to the radical programme in addition to the Home Rule demand. The proposal to make Scottish selfgovernment the sole object was defeated. A short time later, on 9 September 1918 a group of people interested in pushing Scottish self-government met in the Central Halls, Glasgow.117 The YSS’s failure to appease the demands of its nationalist activists led directly to the relaunch of the Scottish Home Rule Association (SHRA). Muirhead was the instigator, but other YSS members were also involved, namely Robert Hay, former president of the YSS (1907–11), Robert Shanks, a former Liberal councillor and vicechairman of the YSS Western Council (1910–11, 1914–15), and two regular YSS speakers, the Rev. James Barr and Mrs Crosthwaite. Like its predecessor it remained a cross-party organization, although, as it reflected the changed politics of the postwar era, the Association received its greatest support not from the Liberal Party, as it had during the 1880s and 1890s but rather from the Labour movement, notably from the ILP, trade unions, and cooperative societies.118 The SHRA was one of a number of avenues through which former Young Scots continued to pursue Home Rule. Unable to reconcile himself with socialism, J.M. Hogge continued to press the case for Home Rule through the Liberal Party.119 Disillusioned with the Liberal Party, other radicals had found the transition less difficult and eased effortlessly toward the ILP. As noted, the Rev. James Barr and, for a time, Muirhead and Kinloch followed this course. Barr already had a close a relationship with the Govan Boilermaker’s Union, and in 1920 he joined the ILP, becoming the MP for Motherwell in 1924. Home Rule was a key part of his manifesto in

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that year, and in 1927 it was Barr who unsuccessfully steered the SHRA’s Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons.120 Alexander MacLaren was active not only in the SHRA, but also in the Scots National League (SNL).121 In 1928 the SHRA and the SNL, together with the Glasgow University Scottish National Association and the Scottish National Movement, joined to form the National Party of Scotland (NPS), which in 1934 merged with the Scottish Party to form the Scottish National Party (SNP). Muirhead and Kinloch left the ILP for the NPS, where they attained prominent positions. Walter Murray joined them, taking on the role of editor of the Scots Independent, the organ of the NPS. Tom H. Gibson speculated that the independence which the YSS enjoyed, free from formal party ties, marked many of its former members, they “had a good bite of independence in the Young Scots’ Society, and liking the taste, decided to remain independent, at the same time retaining their Scottish radical outlook and … still clung to the idea of an independent Scottish political movement.”122 The Young Scots’ Society provided a bridge between the Liberal Party and the emerging Labour and National movements. Former Young Scots continued to pursue Home Rule not only through the much-weakened Liberal Party, but also through the Labour Party, organizations such as the SHRA, and the future Scottish National Party. Prudhomme’s description is apt; it had proved to be “a breeding ground for nationalists or future Labour members.”123 The YSS continued to exist after the First World War; but it was a shadow of its former self. It dedicated itself to reviving the flagging fortunes of the Liberal Party in Scotland and lost its nationalist character. Much later, Roland Muirhead, now a leading member of the newly formed SNP, attended a reception to celebrate thirty years of the Partick Young Scots and, ever eager to attract recruits, made this suggestion: “I can see a great potential future for the Partick Young Scots if at this juncture they should decide to change the name of the Partick Young Scots Society into the Partick Branch of the Scottish Nationalists.”124 Following the First World War the five Nationalistes never had the influence that they had enjoyed before the war. Bourassa was as preoccupied with ecclesiastical concerns as he was with politics. Omer Héroux took charge of the daily running of Le Devoir. Later when Bourassa and Armand Lavergne were elected to the House of Commons, they did so as independents, with Conservative support.

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Asselin turned toward business, returning to journalism only in the 1930s.125 Fournier died tragically in 1918, an early victim of the Spanish flu pandemic that gripped much of Europe and North America that year. Moreover, the failures that beset French Canada during this period, notably the rejection of binationalism outside Quebec and the conscription crisis of 1917, gave rise to a nationalism that rejected the pan-Canadianism of the Nationalistes in favour of a Quebec-centred nationalism. This was a traditionalist nationalism, emphasizing conservative themes and, above all, seeking to entwine Church and nation. It was a priest, Abbé Lionel Groulx, who replaced Henri Bourassa as the toast of young French Canada. These ideas were carried through the various nationalist groupings of the 1920s and 1930s, most notably those associated with Groulx himself, Action française and Action nationale. They dominated the political rhetoric of Maurice Duplessis’s provincial Union nationale, which first took office in 1936. Although Asselin admired the work these groups did in developing a patriotic spirit, he was critical of its content. He criticized the journal L’Action française for promoting a “nativist often detestable propaganda.”126 The Young Scots and Nationalistes left distinctive legacies, combining liberalism and nationalism. Subsequent Scottish nationalism has largely remained liberal, emphasizing “equality between nations.” Partnership was sought through the establishment of a Home Rule Parliament within the UK, campaigned for by the Scottish Covenant Movement in the 1950s and the movement for Home Rule in the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the establishment of a Scottish Parliament in 1999. Partnership of a different sort is the aim of the SNP through its policy of “Independence in Europe,” in which Scotland would enjoy the same political status as other members of the European Union. In Quebec, a combination of liberalism and nationalism was adopted by Action libérale nationale in the 1930s (curiously Asselin was not a supporter)127 and by the Bloc populaire in the 1940s, and this combination drove Quebec’s “Quiet Revolution” in the 1960s.128 This was a nationalism that sought equality between French and English Canadians. “Equality between nations” has since been pursued by both those seeking greater autonomy and independence: those such as the Quebec Liberal Party politicians and intellectuals Gérard Pelletier and Claude Ryan, who sought a “renewed federalism” in which Quebec would be better accommodated within the Canadian federation, and

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the Parti Québécois (PQ), with its founding policy of “sovereigntyassociation,” in which Quebec would be politically independent but economically linked with the rest of Canada. As important has been the degree to which “equality within nations” has been ensured. Here differences in tone are discernable. The dominant nationalism of post-devolution Scotland has emphasized both individual and group rights. For example, the Scottish government’s campaign against racism, “One Scotland, Many Cultures,” sought to promote a better accommodation of immigrant groups through a dual emphasis on the universality of individual rights and a respect for cultural difference. In Quebec group rights have been more prevalent, notably in the Quebec Government’s policy of “interculturalism,” which emphasizes equality among immigrant groups. Yet the emphasis on group rights is clearest in the realm of language laws: here laws designed to protect the French language have necessitated a degree of coercion by insisting that immigrants to Quebec be educated in the French language. The result has been the creation of a more confident Quebec, with a nationalism less centred on an ethnic cultural ideal and more open to the integration of immigrants. In this respect language laws are only “mildly illiberal.”129 This is the difference between two currents of liberal nationalism, both inclusive, but differently emphasizing individualism and collectivism. These expressions of liberal nationalism suggest the continuing legacy of “two faces of liberal nationalism.”

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Notes

introduction 1 Geertz, Islam Observed, 4. 2 See inter alia Guibernau, Nations without States; McCrone, Understanding Scotland; Gagnon et al., The Conditions of Diversity in Multinational Democracies; Keating, Plurinational Democracy; McEwen, Nationalism and the State; Henderson, The Hierachies of Belonging and Political Inclusion. 3 Stevenson, Parallel Paths. 4 Skocpol, “Emerging Agendas and Recurrent Strategies in Historical Sociology,” 368–74; Taylor, “Understanding and Explanation in the Geisteswissenschaften,” 205–6. 5 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf. 6 Dahrendorf, “Liberalism and Economics,” 101. 7 Ibid., 102. 8 Harvie, Scotland and Nationalism, 221. 9 Skocpol, “Emerging Agendas and Recurrent Strategies in Historical Sociology,” 382.

chapter one 1 Analytically a distinction is drawn between the “British Empire” and the “British state.” 2 Mehta, Liberalism and Empire. 3 See inter alia Hanham, Scottish Nationalism, 95; Webb, The Growth of Nationalism in Scotland, 39, 41–3; Brand, The National Movement in Scotland, 40; Keating and Bleiman, Labour and Scottish Nationalism,

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5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26

Notes to pages 11–13

30–1; Hutchison, A Political History of Scotland, 1832–1924, 223, 232– 3, 236–7, 241–2; Hutchison, Scottish Politics in the Twentieth Century, 7, 10–11, 39; Fry, Patronage and Principle, 121; Lynch, “Introduction Scotland 1850–1979”; Finlay, Independent and Free, 1; Finlay, A Partnership for Good?, 52–60; Harvie, Scotland and Nationalism, 22; Mitchell, Strategies for Self-Government, 72–3, 304–5. See inter alia O’Connell, “The Ideas of Henri Bourassa”; Rumilly, Henri Bourassa, la vie publique d’un grand Canadien; Thério, Jules Fournier: Journaliste de combat; Gagnon, La vie orageuse d’Olivar Asselin; Wade, “Olivar Asselin”; Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf; PelletierBaillargeon, Olivar Asselin et son temps; Pelletier-Baillargeon, “Olivar Asselin.” Contra Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf. Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf. O’Connell, “The Ideas of Henri Bourassa.” Naimer, Vanished Supremacies. Alter, Nationalism; Mommsen, “The Varieties of the Nation State in Modern History.” Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, 5–9. Hall, “Nationalisms,” 4. Renan, “What Is a Nation?” Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, 10. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 5–7. Anderson, Imagined Communities. Ibid., 6. Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 5. Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism; Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations; Smith, National Identity. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, 17. Ibid., 15. O’Leary, “Ernest Gellner’s Diagnoses of Nationalism,” 72. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Bruce, “A Failure of the Imagination.” Anderson stresses that these are distinct processes: “Gellner is so anxious to show that nationalism masquerades under false pretences that he assimilates ‘invention’ to ‘fabrication’ and ‘falsity’, rather than to ‘imagining’ and ‘creation.’” Anderson, Imagined Communities, 6; cf. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism. Trevor-Roper, “The Invention of Tradition,” 21–2.

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Notes to pages 13–15

247

27 Trofimenkoff, Action française, 44 28 Calhoun, “Nationalism and Ethnicity,” 222; cf. Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition. More generally, Hobsbawm’s contempt for nationalism is well known. Nairn suggests that, in Hobsbawm’s Nations and Nationalism since 1780, “anything good about national movements turn out actually to derive from some other source or inspiration (quite often internationalism); everything bad is disdainfully highlighted as typical, suspect or ominous.” Nairn, Faces of Nationalism, 51. 29 Calhoun, “Nationalism and Ethnicity,” 222–3. 30 Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 216. 31 Kidd, Subverting Scotland’s Past, 5. 32 Greenfeld, Nationalism; Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood; Gorski, “The Mosaic Moment.” 33 Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 227. 34 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 11. 35 Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 1. This definition has wide currency; cf. Breuilly Nationalism and the State; Hall, “Nationalisms,” 2; and Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, 9. 36 Mann, “A Political Theory of Nationalism,” 44. 37 British Canadians constituted the other “founding people”; no place was reserved for Canada’s First Nations. 38 Hall, “How Homogenous Need We Be?” 166; O’Leary, “Ernest Gellner’s diagnoses of nationalism,” 71; O’Leary, “The Elements of Right-Sizing and Right-Peopling the State.” 39 Mann, “A Political Theory of Nationalism,” 48. 40 Subversion implies downfall or destruction, or at least damage. This characterization of nationalism within the Habsburg Empire appears rather pejorative, not least since nationalism only turned independentist at the close of the First World War, when the empire no longer existed to reform. Hall, “How Homogenous Need We Be?” 166. 41 Mann suggests that this form of nationalism was ruled out by a failure of Europe’s three major empires (Habsburg, Ottoman, and Romanov) to countenance genuine federalism. Mann, “A Political Theory of Nationalism,” 53. 42 Gellner subsequently examined its incidence in the anthropology of Malinowski. Gellner, Language and Solitude. 43 Hutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism, 12. 44 Hearn, “National Identity”; cf. Billig, Banal Nationalism; Cohen, “Personal Nationalism.” 45 Mann, “A Political Theory of Nationalism,” 53.

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46 47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

Notes to pages 16–20

Cohen, “Personal Nationalism,” 803–4, 807. Nairn, Faces of Nationalism, 206–7. O’Leary, “Ernest Gellner’s Diagnoses of Nationalism,” 40. Morton, Unionist Nationalism, 273. Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition.” Ibid., 25. Ibid. This point is empirically substantiated by the studies of Lambert et al. and Genesee and Holobow, which found that both French and English Canadians continue to downgrade speakers of Québécois French on the basis of status traits. Lambert et al., “Evaluation Reactions to Spoken Languages”; Genesee and Holobow, “Change and Stability in Intergroup Perceptions.” Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” 33. Ibid., 31. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism. Ibid., 35–8, 46, 51, 140. Ibid., 44. Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe. With the succession of Edward VII in 1901 the ruling house became SaxeCoburg and Gotha, changing its name to Windsor in 1917 amid the antiGerman feeling stirred by the First World War. Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe, 23. Stokes, “Review: Nationale Bewegung und soziale Organisation I,” 682–3. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 237. Stokes, “How Is Nationalism Related to Capitalism?,” 625–6. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication. Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe, 183. Mann, “A Political Theory of Nationalism,” 52. Ibid., 47. Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe, 179. Ibid., 180–3. Calhoun, “Nationalism and Ethnicity,” 231. Gellner, Thought and Change, 166. Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain, 97. Ibid., 340. Hechter, Internal Colonialism. Ibid., 39–40. Hechter has since reformulated his approach to emphasize the primacy of political factors; cf. Hechter, Containing Nationalism. McRoberts, “Internal Colonialism.” Meadwell, “The Politics of Nationalism in Quebec,” 206–8.

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Notes to pages 20–4

78 79 80 81 82 83

84 85 86 87 88

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

249

McCrone, The Sociology of Nationalism, 106. Ibid., 127. Mann, “The Emergence of Modern European Nationalism,” 139–40. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 244. Mann, “A Political Theory of Nationalism,” 47. Ibid., 49–50. This echoes John Armstrong’s argument that ethnic alignments arose without much recourse to language and that language identity and consciousness were contingent on political and ecclesiastical developments. Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism, chapter 8. Tilly, “Reflections on the History of European State-Making.” Hall, “How Homogenous Need We Be?” 166. Breuilly, Nationalism and the State; Hechter, Containing Nationalism. McCrone, The Sociology of Nationalism, 11. Mann, “The Emergence of Modern European Nationalism,” 162. These extraction rates have been met only during the twentieth century’s two world wars and by the highest rates in the contemporary world (notably Israel and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq), leading to the conclusion that “[N]o modern state (outside the Soviet and fascist blocs) has loomed larger than the states of the Napoleonic War period.” Mann, “A Political Theory of Nationalism,” 47. Colley, Britons, 5. Mann, “The Emergence of Modern European Nationalism,” 151, 153. Mann, “A Political Theory of Nationalism,” 47–8. Hall, “Nationalisms,” 5. Mann, “The Emergence of Modern European Nationalism,” 162; Mann, “A Political Theory of Nationalism,” 62. Nairn, Faces of Nationalism, 211. Hearn, Claiming Scotland; McEwen, Nationalism and the State. Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf. Weber, Economy and Society, 54–6, emphasis in original. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 59. Colley, “Whose Nation?” Dion, “Why Is Secession Difficult in Well-Established Democracies?” Hall, “Nationalisms,” 11. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Meadwell, “Nations, States, Unions.” Doyle, Empires, 12; Suny, “Ambiguous Categories,” 187. Lieven, Empire, 25. Ibid., 9. Beloff, Imperial Sunset.

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Notes to pages 24–7

108 Mitchell and Keating, drawing on the work of Rokkan and Urwin, suggest that Britain may more properly be conceived as a “union state,” characterized by limited functional integration and political management, with a distinct ideology of unionism. Mitchell, Governing Scotland; Keating, The Independence of Scotland; cf. Rokkan and Urwin, “Introduction: Centres and Peripheries in Western Europe.” 109 Mill, “Considerations on Representative Government,” 444. 110 Ibid., 444–5. 111 Mill used federalism to describe Canada’s mid-nineteenth-century relationship with Britain: it constituted the “slightest kind of federal union,” not an equal federation, since, while it possessed full power over its own affairs, it had little or no say in foreign policy. Ibid., 449. 112 King, Federalism and Federation, 75; cf. Watts, “Federalism, Federal Political Systems, and Federations.” 113 Riker, Federalism, xi, 5. 114 Alfred Stepan makes a similar point. Stepan, “Modern Multinational Democracies,” 238n29. 115 Livingstone’s view of federalism has been influential in Paterson’s study and is similarly influential in this book; cf. Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 20. 116 Livingstone, “A Note on the Nature of Federalism,” 84. 117 Ibid., 84–5. 118 At the turn of the twentieth century, French Canadians constituted a significant proportion of the population of the provinces of Ontario, Manitoba, and New Brunswick. 119 Maurice Pinard notes that groups can exert both restraining and mobilizing effects: “all groups are not necessarily always, and to the same degree, conformist or alienated.” Pinard, The Rise of a Third Party, 184–6. 120 Livingstone, “A Note on the Nature of Federalism,” 84, 87. 121 These tools include not only particular institutions but also the manner in which they are operated and the conventions associated with their operation. Ibid., 91. 122 Ibid., 88–91 123 Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies, 25. 124 Ibid., 120–9. 125 Ibid., 42–3. 126 Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society. 127 Kumar, “Civil Society” 390. 128 Ibid., 391. 129 Bryant, “Social Self-Organization, Civility and Sociology,” 399, emphasis in original.

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130 Roy, Progrès, harmonie, liberté. 131 McCrone, The Sociology of Nationalism, 131. 132 Nairn, Faces of Nationalism, 77. Nairn is generally dismissive of the concept despite its prominence in his classic, The Break-Up of Britain. 133 Bryant, “Civic Nation, Civil Society, Civil Religion,” 143. 134 Khilnani, “The Development of Civil Society,” 30. 135 Hall, “In Search of Civil Society,” 15; Khilnani, “The Development of Civil Society,” 28. 136 Gellner, “The Importance of Being Modular,” 42. 137 Bryant, “Social Self-Organization, Civility and Sociology,” 399. 138 Bryant, “Civic Nation, Civil Society, Civil Religion,” 147. 139 Hall, “Conditions for National Homogenizers,” 15–16. 140 Miller, On Nationality, 2; Kymlicka, Multiculturalism Citizenship; Tamir, Liberal Nationalism. 141 Hall, Liberalism, 2. 142 Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism, 357. 143 Meadwell, “Republics, Nations and Transitions to Modernity,” 19n1. 144 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 50–69. 145 Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” 37–8. 146 Hall, Liberalism, 130. 147 Mill, “Considerations on Representative Government,” 430. 148 Ibid., 428. 149 Ibid., 430–1. 150 Miller, On Nationality, 185. 151 Taylor, “Nationalism and Modernity,” 200–1. 152 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, 105–6. 153 Tamir, Liberal Nationalism, 90, 105. 154 Ibid., 7. 155 O’Leary, “Ernest Gellner’s Diagnoses of Nationalism,” 69. 156 Taylor, “Nationalism and Modernity,” 204. 157 Ibid., 215. 158 Tamir, Liberal Nationalism, 79.

chapter two 1 2 3 4

MacKenzie, “Essay and Reflection,” 717. Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain, 129. Colley, Britons, 130. Ibid. There are exceptions: the historian, A.J.P. Taylor famously refused to acknowledge the creation of “British” history, preferring to see “history” and the “empire” as English. Pocock, “British History.” Curiously this

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6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25

Notes to pages 34–7

view appears to have been endorsed by Michael Doyle: the index entry for Britain reads: “see English Empire.” Doyle, Empires, 400. The section in Colley’s book analyzing Scots’ formative participation in the British Empire is entitled “A Scottish Empire?” Colley, Britons, 117. The question mark was absent in the title of the Scottish nationalist A.D. Gibb’s book, Scottish Empire, and in two more recent works: Fry, Scottish Empire, and Devine, Scotland’s Empire. MacKenzie, “Essay and Reflection,” 732, 724. Finlay, “The Rise and Fall of Popular Imperialism in Scotland, 1850–1950,” 16–17; Forsyth, “Empire and Union,” 9. Irish Catholics are the other contender for this dubious distinction. While Ireland was subject to a colonial system of government, it was the Treaty of Union of 1801 that formally incorporated Ireland within the British state. Colley, Britons, 101–5. Ibid., 117–32. Ibid., 120–1. Wade, The French Canadians, 1760-1967, 510–11. Cf. Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 9–11. Cf. Darwin, “Empire and Ethnicity,” 395–7. Heintzman, “Political Space and Economic Space.” Ibid., 36–7. This is developed in chapter 6. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 224. Ibid., 228. Ibid., 227–8. Doyle, Empires; Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations; Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers; and Ferguson, Empire. Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, 123–31; cf. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, 227–8. Sydney Pollard argues that the shift from manufacturing to finance and trade during this era provides additional evidence of Britain’s decline. Pollard, “The Dynamism of the British Economy in the Decades to 1914.” However, Geoffrey Ingham convincingly argues the City has consistently enjoyed a privileged position over British industry. Ingham, Capitalism Divided?. Doyle, Empires, 236–7, 246; cf. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action. O’Brien, “The Imperial Component in the British Economy before 1914,” 14. Mann, “Introduction: Empires with Ends,” 3–4. Hall, “Will the United States Decline as did Britain?” 126; Mann, “Introduction: Empires with Ends,” 3. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 266.

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Notes to pages 38–43

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26 Ibid., 266, 291. 27 Ibid., 278. 28 Hobson, “Two Hegemonies or One?” 316–17, 312; cf. Friedberg, Weary Titan. 29 Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, 90. 30 Doyle, Empires, 346. 31 Ferguson, Empire, 221. 32 Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 49. 33 Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain, 129. 34 Whatley, Scottish Society 1707–1830. 35 This is often misunderstood. For example, Henri Bourassa wrote that England “had either to conquer Scotland, or be conquered by her. Conquer England did, and it was the great effort of her early stage of growth. The assimilation of the Scottish race was extremely profitable to the English people.” Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 9. 36 Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 32–6. 37 Morton, Unionist Nationalism, 190. 38 Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 33. 39 Morton, Unionist Nationalism, 22. 40 Ibid., 47. 41 Hanham, Scottish Nationalism. 42 Morton, Unionist Nationalism, 274–5. 43 Morton, “Scottish Rights and ‘Centralisation’ in the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” 275. 44 The post had been suppressed in the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion in 1746. 45 Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 62; Mitchell, Governing Scotland, 36–41. 46 Levitt, “Administrative Devolution and Scottish Sentiment,” 35. 47 Harvie, No Gods and Precious Few Heroes, 10. 48 It was not until 1926 that the secretary’s title was changed to secretary of State for Scotland, and given full cabinet rank. 49 Morton, Unionist Nationalism, 154. 50 Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 55; Mitchell, Governing Scotland, 42–5. 51 Robbins, Nineteenth Century Britain, 107. 52 Ibid., 112. 53 Kellas, The Scottish Political System. 54 The imperial connection was only brought to a close with the repatriation of the BNA Act in 1982, which took place without the consent of the

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69 70 71 72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80

Notes to pages 43–50

Quebec government. cf. Meadwell, “Nations, State, Unions.” Following repatriation the BNA Act was renamed the Constitution Act. Cf. Gagnon and Turgeon, “Managing Diversity in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Canada,” 11–18. Dickinson and Young, A Short History of Québec, 161–7. Ibid., 180–6; Noel, “Canadian Responses to Ethnic Conflict,” 45. Livingstone, “A Note on the Nature of Federalism,” 84. McRae, “Consociationalism and the Canadian Political System”; Noel, “Consociational Democracy and Canadian Federation”; Noel, “Canadian Responses to Ethnic Conflict,” 46. Noel, “Canadian Responses to Ethnic Conflict,” 46. Gagnon and Turgeon, “Managing Diversity in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Canada,” 15. Stanley, “The Federal Bargain,” 286–7. Quoted in Wade, The French Canadians, 1760–1967, 699-700. Cf. Silver, The French Canadian Idea of Confederation. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 327–9, 335-9. McRae, “Consociationalism and the Canadian Political System,” 256. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 306–8. Honoré Mercier was influential among the group of journalists, including Olivar Asselin, who launched the newspaper Les Débats. Les Débats carried a series of articles devoted to Mercier’s legacy, which referred to him as a defender of French rights. Cf. Guy Saucier, “Aux Jeunes,” Les Débats, no. 15, 11 March 1900. Staples, “Consociationalism at the Provincial Level.” Wade, The French Canadians, 1760–1967, 437; Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 13. Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 12–18. Bulpitt, Territory and Power in the United Kingdom, 83. The Quebec Act appears to have been geopolitically inspired: an attempt to secure the loyalty of French Canadians during the American Revolution. Morton and Morris, “Civil Society, Governance and Nation 1832–1914,” 356. Quoted in Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 164. Brown, The Social History of Religion in Scotland since 1730, 33. McLeod, Scotland and the Liberal Party 1880–1900, 21. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 301–4. Bélanger, “Le libéralisme de Wilfrid Laurier,” 52–5. Quoted in ibid., 54: “Je reconnais qu’il y a en Europe des hommes dangereux qui se donnent comme libéraux, bien qu’ils n’aient de libéral que

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81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

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le nom. Ce n’est pas le libéralisme de mon parti. Nous, nous sommes libéraux comme on est libéral en Angleterre, nous sommes libéraux comme O’Connell, John Bright et Richard Cobden. O’Connell est un de nos chefs, lui qui a si vaillamment défendu la réligion dans le parlement anglais; c’est là que nous puisons nos doctrines, et non pas chez ces prétendus libéraux qui cherchent à faire triompher leurs idées par la violence et l’effusion de sang.” Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 304–8, 644–6, chapter 33. Ibid., 695. Morton, Unionist Nationalism, 27. Ryan, The Clergy and Economic Growth in Quebec, 37. Ibid., 35. Frykman and Löfgren, Culture Builders. Linteau, Histoire de Montréal depuis la Confédération, 93. Frykman and Löfgren, Culture Builders, 266. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes. Morton, Unionist Nationalism, 97. Morgan and Trainor, “The Dominant Classes,” 106–7. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 474–5. Ibid., 186, 480. Colas, Civil Society and Fanaticism. Savard and Wyczynski, “François-Xavier Garneau,” 301–3. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 261; Dickinson and Young, A Short History of Québec, 176. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 604. Ibid., 606–8. Quoted in Wade, The French Canadians, 1760–1967, 581. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 606, 60, 482. Ibid., 610. Roy, Progrès, harmonie, liberté, 278. Brown, The Social History of Religion in Scotland since 1730, 32–3. Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 56. Ibid. Ibid.

chapter three 1 My emphasis. 2 “The Young Scots Movement by JMH,” reprinted from The Speaker, leaflet, n.d. [1902]. 3 Young Scots’ Society, Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 22–6.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30

Notes to pages 58–64

Ibid., 6. Graham, Willie Graham, 39. Hogge, The Young Scots Society, 3. National Library of Scotland [NLS], Acc. 6868, Liberal Leader Henry Campbell Bannerman (6 February 1905) and Lord Tweedmouth (14 February 1905) donated £10 and £2, respectively. The Young Scot, March 1904, 58. Report of the YSS Publications Committee, 1910–11, 29 April 1911. Mitchell Library [ML], Kinloch MSS, box 6/22, J.L. Kinloch to Jennie Lee, 2 December 1964. Hogge, The Young Scots Society, 5, emphasis in original. “The Young Scots Movement by JMH.” Scottish Patriot, vol. 1, no. 6, July 1903, emphasis in original. The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 2, 2 November 1903, 16. The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 4, January 1904, 38. Sterling Craig, “Letter to the Editor,” Glasgow Herald, 26 March 1902. James Steel, “Letter to the Editor,” Edinburgh Evening News, 18 October 1900. Graham, Willie Graham, 39. NLS, Acc. 6868, Campbell Bannerman to John Gulland, YSS secretary, 10 March 1906. Glasgow Herald, 11 April 1910. Hutchison, A Political History of Scotland, 1832–1924, 223; Finlay, A Partnership for Good?, 56. Hector Macpherson, “Tory Opposition to Scottish Home Rule,” Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 8, June 1914, 116–17. Glasgow University Library [GUL], Scott MSS, MS. Gen. 1465, Political Diary, 1 December 1911. J.W. Gulland, “The Young Scots for Scotland! Scotland for the Young Scots!” The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 2, 2 November 1903, 16. The Young Scot, vol. 2, no. 3, 1 December 1904, 26. Cf. The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 3, 2 December 1903, 20; The Young Scot, vol. 1, nos. 5–12, 1 February 1903–1 September 1904, 47, 60, 64, 76, 91, 103, 112, 124, 134; The Young Scot, vol. 2, nos. 4–5, 2 January 1905–1 February 1905, 42, 44, 61. Hanham, Scottish Nationalism, 95. Finlay, A Partnership for Good?, 54. Young Scots’ Society Annual Conference programs, 1909, 1910, 1913. Olivar Asselin, “Notre Programme,” Le Nationaliste, 6 March 1904: “1. Pour le Canada, dans ses relations avec la Grande-Bretagne la plus

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31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45

46

257

large mesure d’autonomie compatible avec le maintien du lien colonial; 2. Pour les provinces canadiennes, dans leurs relations avec le pouvoir fédéral, la plus large mesure d’autonomie compatible avec le maintien du lien fédéral; 3. Adoption par le gouvernement fédéral et les gouvernements provinciaux d’une politique de développement économique et intellectuel essentiellement canadienne.” These three points were spelt out in greater detail in the full-length version of the program, reproduced in Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, appendix. House of Commons Debates, Canada, 13 March 1900, 1828; cf. O’Connell, “The Ideas of Henri Bourassa,” 367. Rumilly, Histoire de la province de Québec tome XIII, 113: “Si je vous fais la guerre, c’est parce que je suis libéral.” Lavergne, Trente ans de vie nationale, 31 Lavergne admitted that his liberalism was “plus de tradition que de formation réfléchie.” Ibid., 85. Archives municipales de Montréal [AMM], Fonds Olivar Asselin [FOA], Olivar Asselin to Edmond de Nevers, 3 April 1901: “Je suis libéral; tout ma famille est libérale; mon grand père et mon père furent les amis dévoués de Pierre[-Alexis] Tremblay dans les luttes que celui-ci livrait contre sir Hector[-Louis] Langevin pour la liberté du suffrage, l’éducation du peuple et autres causes chères au coeur vrais libéraux.” Pelletier-Baillargeon, “Olivar Asselin.” Thério, Jules Fournier, 24. Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 228–9. Henri Bourassa, “Le nationalisme et les partis II,” Le Devoir, 16 May 1913. Le Nationaliste, 1st year, no. 8, 24 April 1904; a similar point is made by Annette Hayward, Le Conflit des régionalistes et des “exotiques,” 110n46. The News (Toronto), “Nationalism for Canadians,” 31 October 1903. AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to Alfred Larocque, 5 February 1904: “l’organisation de quelques cercles de la Ligue.” O’Connell insists that the Ligue “organized branches in the main towns of the province for purposes of study, publicity, and mass meetings.” O’Connell, Henri Bourassa and Canadian Nationalism, 96. Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 225. Wade, The French Canadians, 1760–1967, 520. AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to Henri Bourassa, 24 March 1903: “un nom qui indique l’allure du journal et sa couleur politique, et qui soit nouveau au Canada.” AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to Alfred Larocque, 5 February 1904: “la disparition successive des Débats et du Combat nous laisse le champ libre.”

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53

54

55 56

57 58

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63

Notes to pages 67–9

Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 145. Dutil, “The Politics of Muzzling,” 119. Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 148. Quoted in Bonville, La Presse québécoise de 1884 à 1914, 101: “dans un ancien magasin de la rue Notre-Dame, froid comme une glacière, et qui reposait sur une cave ouverte à l’arrière, où la neige pénétrait par banc.” Hayward, Le Conflit des régionalistes et des “exotiques,” 114. AMM, FOA, Omer Héroux to Olivar Asselin, 6 April 1904: “Dans la région de Trois-Rivières … l’absence de référence à la question religieuse, dans la propagande du journal retardera la propagande.” AMM, FOA, Armand Lavergne to Olivar Asselin, 13 November 1907. Armand Lavergne, whose law firm Lavergne and Taschereau represented Le Nationaliste, expressed his concern to Olivar Asselin: “Malheureusement, ‘Le Nationaliste’ se trouve à être un de nos plus fort débiteurs …” Henri Bourassa, “M. Bourassa à M. Bégin [editor of La Croix],” Le Nationaliste, 28 May 1905: “J’ai cessé de collaborer au ‘Nationaliste,’ parce que j’ai constaté l’impossibilité pour un homme public d’écrire des articles dans un journal et d’éviter en même temps qu’on le tienne responsable de tout ce que ce journal publie.” Bergevin et al., Henri Bourassa, xl: “un peu casse-cou.” Henri Bourassa, “Avant le combat,” Le Devoir, 10 January 1910: “Pour assurer le triomphe des idées sur les appétits, du bien public sur l’esprit de parti, il n’y a qu’un moyen: réveiller dans le peuple, et surtout dans les classes dirigeantes, le sentiment du devoir public sous toutes ses formes: devoir religieux, devoir national, devoir civique.” Wade, The French Canadians, 1760–1967, 565. Thério, Jules Fournier, 52: “Peu à peu, comme beaucoup d’autres d’ailleurs, il [Fournier] finit par comprendre que les grandes qualités de M. Bourassa le menaient elles-mêmes à sa perte.” Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 481–3. Ibid., 513. Wade, The French Canadians, 1760–1967, 579. Quoted in Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 478: “NOUS REFUSONS D’ANNONCER dans le «DEVOIR», les mauvais livres, les théâtres immoraux, les boissons fortes (autres que vins et bières), les médecines brevetées à base d’opium, de morphine, de cocaïne ou d’alcool … Nous voulons protéger le public, et surtout le public ouvrier, contre l’exploitation dont il est victime.” Ibid., 472: “Il éprouve une totale confiance à l’endroit du gendre de Tardivel dont les convictions religieuses coïncident parfaitement avec les siennes.”

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Notes to pages 69–75

259

64 Thério, Jules Fournier, 52: “Bourassa prêchait des belles théories mais ne passait jamais à l’action.” 65 Beaulieu and Hamelin, Les journaux du Québec de 1764 à 1964, 83, 127, 142. 66 Wade, The French Canadians, 1760–1967, 600. 67 Library and Archives Canada [LAC], Fonds Armand Lavergne [FAL], MG 27 II E12, Main Johnson to Armand Lavergne, 8 November 1910. 68 Le Nationaliste, “Une protestation,” 18 October 1908. 69 The News (Toronto), “Nationalism for Canadians,” 31 October 1903. 70 Ibid. 71 Quoted in Levitt, Henri Bourassa on Imperialism and Bi-culturalism, 178. 72 Prudhomme, La Renaissance du Nationalisme écossais au XXe siècle 1844–1928, 431. 73 Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 22–6. 74 Scottish Patriot, July 1903, 48; The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 10, 1 July 1904, 114; Glasgow Herald, 27 April 1908; “Tenth Annual Report, 1909–10,” Young Scots Handbook, 1910–11, 12; Dunfermline Journal, 6 May 1911. 75 The Scotsman, “Mr McKinnon Wood in Glasgow,” 11 November 1913, 10. 76 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/8, Muirhead’s notes form the Partick YSS AGM, 4 April 1912. 77 YSS Office-Bearers, 1901–02, 4; YSS Office-Bearers, 1903–04, 4; The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 7, 1 April 1904, 76; Young Scots Handbook, 1906–07, 16; Young Scots Handbook, 1907–08, 22–3; Young Scots Handbook, 1908–09, 16; Young Scots Handbook, 1910–11, 20–3; Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 22–6; Dundee Advertiser, 18 May 1914. 78 Report of the YSS Publications Committee, 1911–12, 4 May 1912. 79 The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 7, 1 April 1904, 79. 80 Ibid., vol. 2, no. 1, 1 October 1904, 2. 81 Scottish Patriot, vol. 1, no. 6, July 1903, 43; The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 2, 2 November 1903, 15; The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 19, 1 July 1904, 106; The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 8, 2 May 1904, 82; The Young Scot, vol. 2, no. 7, 1 April 1905, 82. 82 Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 27–30. 83 Corr, “Roland Muirhead,” 217. 84 Information gleamed from YSS branch syllabi. 85 Scottish Patriot, vol. 1, no. 6, July 1903, 43; The Young Scot, vol. 2, no. 1, 1 October 1904, 2. 86 The Young Scot, vol. 2, no. 7, 1 April 1905, 82.

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Notes to pages 75–84

87 Scottish Patriot, vol. 2, no. 13, February 1904, 11; The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 5, 1 February 1904, 48; The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 7, 1 April 1904, 79. 88 The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 8, 2 May 1904; The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 10, 1 July 1904; The Young Scot, vol. 2, no. 1, 1 October 1904, 2; The Young Scot, vol. 2, no. 7, 1 April 1905, 82; Scottish Patriot, vol. 1, no. 6, July 1903, 43; Scottish Patriot, vol. 2, no. 14, March 1904, 27. 89 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 2. 90 Rumilly, Henri Bourassa, 8–13; Bélanger, “Henri Bourassa.” 91 Thiéro, Jules Fournier, 24; Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 135–6; PelletierBaillargeon, “Olivar Asselin.” 92 Archambault, Cinquante ans de journalisme catholique, 1896–1946, 7. 93 La Terreur, “Armand Lavergne,” 40, 42. 94 Savard, “Jules-Paul Tardivel.” 95 Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 241 96 Bergevin et al., Henri Bourassa, xxi; Bélanger, “Henri Bourassa.” 97 Pelletier-Baillargeon, “Olivar Asselin.” 98 Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 138. 99 Ouimet, Biographies canadiennes-françaises, 210; Lavergne, Trente ans de vie nationale, 31. 100 See, for example, Stevenson, Parallel Paths, 193. 101 Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 136–9; Pelletier-Baillargeon, “Olivar Asselin.” 102 Thério, Jules Fournier, 24. 103 Cf. Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe, 180–1.

chapter four 1 The title of Hobsbawm’s book, Industry and Empire, is reversed here, thereby emphasising the role of the British Empire in the industrialization of Scotland and Quebec. 2 Miller, Painting the Map Red, 10–12. 3 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 394. 4 Ibid., 374–5. 5 Although the Anglo-German agreement of 1898 removed the possibility of German interference. 6 It is not within the scope of this chapter to detail the involvement of Cecil Rhodes and the failed “Jamieson Raid,” which had taken place with the full knowledge and support of British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain. 7 The Liberal Party won thirty-four seats to the Unionists’ thirty-six, although it polled 50.2 percent of votes, compared to the Unionists 49 percent and others 0.8 percent.

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Notes to pages 84–8

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

261

Fry, Patronage and Principle, 107; Brown, “‘Echoes of Midlothian,’” 159. Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform, 59–64. Brown, “‘Echoes of Midlothian,’” 182. Cook, A Short History of the Liberal Party, 1900–92, 32. MacLeod, Scotland and the Liberal Party 1880–1900, 253; Brown, “‘Echoes of Midlothian,’” 171. MacPherson, The Gospel of Force, 1–2. MacPherson’s son confirmed that “one of the fruits of the attitude of the Evening News on the war question and the rights of free speech was the foundation of the Young Scots’ Society by Mr J.M. Hogge, and other enthusiasts.” MacPherson, Hector MacPherson The Man and His Work, 18–19. “Junior,” “Letter to the Editor,” Edinburgh Evening News, 12 October 1900. “JM” [James Myles Hogge, a founding Young Scot], “Letter to the Editor,” Edinburgh Evening News, 13 October 1900. Editorial, Edinburgh Evening News, 16 October 1900. James Steel, “Letter to the Editor,” Edinburgh Evening News, 18 October 1900. Edinburgh Evening News, 27 October 1900. The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 5, 1 February 1904, 48. Brown, “‘Echoes of Midlothian,’” 171–2; Dyer, Capable Citizens and Improvident Democrats, 59. Brown, “‘Echoes of Midlothian,’” 177–8. Cf. “The Young Scots Society: A Short Sketch of its Origin and History,” Young Scots Handbook, 1910–11, 3. Ibid. Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 5; cf. “The Pro-Boer Delegate in Edinburgh,” The Scotsman, 27 April 1901, 10. “The Young Scots Society by J.M. Hogge,” reprinted from the New Liberal Review, leaflet, n.d. [1902], 5. Ferguson, Empire, 279–80. Brown, “‘Echoes of Midlothian,’” 182–3. “Scottish Nationalism. What a National Party Could Do. By a Young Scot,” Dundee Advertiser, 21 October 1910. “Young Scots Society. The Dunfermline Conference,” Reynold’s Newspaper, 23 April 1911. Knox, “Rev. James Barr,” 61–2. Napier was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia; it is perhaps his diasporic experience that led to his exaggerated and romantic sense of Scottishness.

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Notes to pages 88–91

33 The Fiery Cross, January 1903, 8. 34 Brown, “‘Echoes of Midlothian,’” 168. 35 Henri Bourassa, “Le Nationalisme et les Partis I,” Le Devoir, 14 May 1913: “Le mouvement nationaliste est né de la participation officielle du Canada à la guerre sud-africaine.” 36 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 15. 37 Laurier’s declaration had been published in The Globe (Toronto) on 14 October 1899. 38 Henri Bourassa, La Patrie, 20 October 1899. 39 Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 42. 40 Miller, Painting the Map Red, chapter 1. For example, McGill University students had attacked the premises of Laval University in Montreal, accusing French Canadian students of disloyalty for failing to support the war. Pelletier-Baillargeon, “Olivar Asselin.” 41 Lavergne, Trente ans de vie nationale, 94. 42 Ibid., 94: “l’idole de toute la jeunesse étudiante malgré la conspiration du silence ou, de temps à autre, la calomnie, ourdie et lancée contre lui par la presse ministérielle.” 43 Ibid., 97. 44 Lacombe, La rencontre de deux peuples élus, 72–8. 45 Beloff, Imperial Sunset, 15. 46 Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 4, emphasis in original. 47 “Anglais, Canadiens et Boers,” Les Débats, no. 2, 10 December 1899: “Comme hommes donc, et surtout comme sujets britanniques, nous regrettons amèrement de voir un contingent canadien aller se faire massacrer à l’étranger, nous regrettons de voir le sang des généreux soldats d’Albion couler à flots pour une cause si peu digne de tels martyrs. Mais, au nom de la justice, nous adressons en même temps aux guerriers boer l’expression la plus cordiale de nos félicitations pour l’énergie merveilleuse avec laquelle ils repoussent l’invasion brutale et souvent défendent ce qui donne du prix à la vie: le foyer et la patrie.” 48 “Le Militarisme et les Colonies,” Les Débats, 31 December 1899: “Les Français de là-bas [Canada] reconnaissent clairement que ce qui se passe aujourd’hui en Afrique pourrait, si l’occasion s’en présente, se passer aussi au Canada. Ils voient que l’argent de la nation se dépense à organiser des contingents sans que la nation soit consultée (retour les causes qui provoqueront le soulèvement des colonies américaines), qu’un sentiment d’orgueilleuse arrogance se généralise chez les Anglais et que des idées de mililtarisme circulent au sein d’une population pacifique à qui la guerre devrait demeurer inconnue.”

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Notes to pages 91–3

49 50 51 52 53

54 55 56 57

58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65 66 67

68

263

Beloff, Imperial Sunset, 67. Miller, Painting the Map Red. Cf. Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 37. Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 528. Henri Bourassa, “Le nationalisme et les partis II,” Le Devoir, 16 May 1913: “les relations du groupe nationaliste avec le ministère libéral étaient alors excellentes.” Rumilly, Histoire de la province de Québec, tome X, 94–5. Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 142. LAC, Fonds Henri Bourassa [FHB], MG 35 A-194, Omer Héroux to Henri Bourassa, 14 May 1902. LAC, FAL, MG 27 II E12, Henri Bourassa to Armand Lavergne, 12 January 1902: “Je vous félicite de l’organisation de votre ligue, en vous répétant mon conseil, si vous permettez: restez solide sur le terrain canadien, qui implique d’ailleurs la conservation du sentiment canadien-français – le Canada étant composé des deux races.” Lavergne, Trente ans de vie nationale, 97. Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 142–3. LAC, FHB, MG 27 II E1, Microfiche M-722, Henri Bourassa to Wilfrid Laurier, 25 December 1903: “Je ne sais pas qui ou quoi a pu vous faire imaginer qu’il y avait le mouvement français ou anti anglais. Je connais presque tous ces jeunes gens et je sais que leurs idées personelles, comme la pensée de leur ligue, sont essentiellement canadiennes.” Lavergne, Trente ans de vie nationale, 97: “les autres sont morts ou j’ai oublié leurs noms.” Lavergne claims that as secretary to Lomer Gouin, a Liberal provincial minister, Olivar Asselin was prevented from participating. Ibid., 97. Omer Héroux, “Au temps de la ‘Ligue nationaliste,’” Le Devoir, 19 April 1937: “dix ou douze jeunes gens, sans nom, sans reputation.” “La ligue nationaliste,” Le Nationaliste, 31 December 1905: “c’est M. Asselin qui a été l’initiateur et le principal ouvrier de la société nouvelle.” Héroux, “Au temps de la ‘Ligue nationaliste’:” “il fut l’inspirateur, le createur du mouvement et son maître ouvrier … il fut aussi le grand organisateur.” Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 517–22; Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 20. The Young Scot Roland Muirhead speculated that it was Chamberlain’s protectionist drive that raised German suspicions and led eventually to war. ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 3/69, Roland Muirhead to Claude Wilson, 2 February 1915. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 211–12.

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Notes to pages 93–6

69 Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 289. 70 Offer, The First World War, 264; Ferguson, Empire, 287. 71 Chamberlain’s Tariff Reform campaign of 1903 had been preceded by the “Fair Trade” campaign of the 1880s. 72 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 212. 73 Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform, 86–7. 74 Hutchison, A Political History of Scotland, 1832–1924, 218. 75 Sykes, Tariff Reform in British Politics, 1903–1913, 1. 76 The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 1, 1 October 1903, 7. 77 Ibid.; Scottish Patriot, vol. 1, no. 8, September 1903, 56. 78 The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 1, 1 October 1903, 7. 79 Cain, “Wealth, Power and Empire,” 110. 80 John Gulland, secretary of the YSS, was appointed organising secretary of the Cobden Club in Scotland. It was suggested to Gulland that he act wherever possible with the YSS “as our membership is so weak in Scotland.” NLS, Acc. 6868, Harold Cox to John Gulland, 13 August 1903. 81 “Young Scots Free Trade Campaign,” leaflet, 17 July 1903. 82 Brown, ‘“Echoes of Midlothian,’” 181. The Liberal Party secured fiftyeight seats to the Unionists’ ten, and Labour’s two; the Liberals polled 56.4 percent of the vote, the Unionists 38.2 percent, Labour 2.3 percent, and others 3.1 percent. 83 Edinburgh University Library [EUL], Scottish Liberal Association [SLA], minutes, Organising Committee, 5 November, 21 December 1905, 7 February 1906. 84 The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 1, 1 October 1903, 3. 85 Ibid., vol. 1, no. 7, 1 April 1904, 71. 86 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 495. 87 O’Connell, “The Ideas of Henri Bourassa.” 88 Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 28. 89 However, in practice, Bourassa grew increasingly concerned with the impact of economic liberalism on Quebec’s Catholic order. Levitt, Henri Bourassa: Catholic Critic, 195. 90 Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 28–9. 91 Jules Vernier [Olivar Asselin], “Fédération Imperiale,” Les Débats, no. 14, 4 March 1900: “Ils [the British] se sont vite aperçus que leurs industriels sont routiniers et que leurs compagnies de transports ne reconnaissent pas devoir refuser de transporter des marchandises étrangères sous prétexte de patriotisme; et à leur grande stupéfaction ils voient leur commerce péricliter et avancer banqueroute. Ils sont trop anglais et conservateur pour changer leur méthode de fabriquer. Eux qui ont toujours prêché

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Notes to pages 96–102

92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110

111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121

265

l’open door ont imaginé le moyen opposé, le closed market. D’où la fédération imperial.” Pollard, “British Retardation, 1900–1980,” 118. Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 7. Ibid., 6. Sykes, Tariff Reform in British Politics, 1903–1913, 6. Beloff, Imperial Sunset, 121. Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 168. Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 593–4. Offer, The First World War, 264. Beloff, Imperial Sunset, 16. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 264. Offer, The First World War, 244–69. Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform, 240; Offer, Property and Politics 1870–1914, 311, 396; Offer, The First World War, 155. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 220. Young Scots Handbook, 1910–11, 25–6; Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 27–30. Offer, Property and Politics 1870–1914, 363. Official program, “Land Demonstration in Support of Budget Land Clauses on Glasgow Green,” 18 September 1909. Offer, Property and Politics 1870–1914, 320–1. ML, Kinloch MSS, Box 1/19, J.L. Kinloch to Alexander MacLaren, secretary YSS Western Council, 13 April 1910. For example, a resolution calling for a reduction in military spending had been passed at the Young Scots Annual Conference in 1906. “The Young Scots’ Society Conference in Edinburgh,” The Scotsman, 16 April 1906, 7. “Young Scots and Home Rule,” The Scotsman, 19 January 1914, 10. Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 169–70. Thério, Jules Fournier, 59. Bourassa, Why the Navy Act Should Be Repealed, 46. LAC, FHB, MG 27 II E1, Henri Bourassa to C.H. Cahan, 12 December 1911. Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 577–9. Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 20. Murrow, Henri Bourassa and French-Canadian Nationalism, 61. Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 9. Beck, Pendulum of Power, 121; Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 588; Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 172–3. Lavergne, Trente ans de vie nationale, 193–4; Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 598.

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122 123 124 125

126

127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145

146 147 148 149

Notes to pages 102–7

Henri Bourassa, Le Devoir, 29 May, 30 May, 2 June 1913. Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 599, 603. AMM, FOA, 1911 folder. AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to Alfred Larocque, 28 August 1911: “J’ai déjà sous la main un grand nombre d’hommes actifs et intelligents, mais je ne vois pas comment je pourrais me passer de toi.” AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to Alfred Larocque, 1 September 1911: “Si je te disais que je considère ton concours comme indispensable à mon succès, reviendrais-tu immédiatement en ville?” AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to Joseph Courtois, 11 September 1911. Cf. Canadian Century vol. 4, no. 11, 16 September 1911. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 687. Beck, Pendulum of Power, 119. Ibid., 132–3. Henri Bourassa, “Le nationalisme et les partis IX,” Le Devoir, 30 May 1913. Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 604. Laurendeau, “Henri Bourassa,” 139. Cf. Bélanger, “Les députés conservateurs-nationalistes et le gouvernement Borden.” Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 631–3; Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 205–11; Stevenson, Parallel Paths, 194–5. Quoted in Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 683. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism; cf. Ingham, Capitalism Divided?. Dickson, “From Client to Supplicant,” 255. MacKenzie, “Essay and Reflection,” 731. Harvie, No Gods and Precious Few Heroes, 4–5. Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform; Offer, The First World War. Offer, The First World War, 157. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 271–2. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 289. The Alaska Boundary dispute had been a political consequence of this strategy. Both the Nationalistes and the Laurier government believed that Britain had conceded too much territory to the United States, confirming their view that Canada should be allowed to negotiate its own international treaties. Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1914, 519–20. Beloff, Imperial Sunset, 16–17. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 267. Offer, The First World War, 159–61. Hamelin and Montminy, “Québec 1896–1929,” 15–28.

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Notes to pages 107–13

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150 Medrano, Divided Nations, 111, 197. 151 McCrone, “Towards a Principled Elite”; Linteau, “Quelques réflexions autour de la bourgeoisie québécoise, 1850–1914.” 152 Miller, The Canadian Career of the Fourth Earl of Minto, 7–12. 153 McCrone, “Towards a Principled Elite,” 176–85. 154 Linteau, “Quelques réflexions autour de la bourgeoisie québécoise, 1850– 1914,” 58–65. 155 Medrano, Divided Nations, 107. 156 MacKenzie, “Essay and Reflection,” 730–1. 157 McCrone, “Toward a Principled Elite,” 187. 158 Harvie, No Gods and Precious Few Heroes, 1. 159 Ibid., 2. 160 Devine, “The Break-Up of Britain?” 177. 161 MacKenzie, “Essay and Reflection,” 730. 162 Devine, “The Break-Up of Britain?” 176. 163 Dickson, “From Client to Supplicant,” 246. 164 Devine, “The Break-Up of Britain?” 177. 165 Young Scots’ Society, Manifesto and Appeal to the Scottish People on Scottish Home Rule, 4. 166 Ibid., 3. 167 Elder, “J.M. Hogge.” 168 J.M. Hogge, “Scots Home Rule – The Argument Stated III,” The Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 6, May 1914, 100. 169 J.M. Hogge, “Scottish Nationality,” The Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 4, February 1914, 57. 170 “Young Scots Society Conference in Dunfermline,” Dunfermline Journal, 6 May 1911. 171 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/8, Roland Muirhead to David Patton, Secretary, Glasgow South Suburban Branch, n.d. [April 1912]. 172 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 42–3; Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 133–4. 173 Hechter, Internal Colonialism; McRoberts, “Internal Colonialism.” 174 Thério, Jules Fournier, 121. 175 Quoted in Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 134. 176 Ibid.,134–5; Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 464–5. 177 Cf. Centre Lionel Groulx, Fonds Imprimerie populaire limitée (Le Devoir), P56/B, 70. 178 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 77. 179 Ibid., 43–4. 180 Ibid., 96.

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Notes to pages 113–20

181 AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to the directors of the Société Saint-JeanBaptiste, 13 June 1914. 182 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 570–3. 183 Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 160. 184 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 112. 185 Ibid., 116. 186 Young Scots’ Society, Manifesto and Appeal to the Scottish People on Scottish Home Rule, 1. 187 Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 46. 188 Ibid. 189 Ibid. 5. 190 “Do You Believe in the British Empire?” YSS Leaflet, New Series, no. 2, 1910. 191 Ibid. 192 Ibid. 193 Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 19. 194 Ibid., 14n1. 195 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 10. 196 Mehta, Liberalism and Empire, 200. 197 Cooper, “Empire Multiplied”; Sartori, “The British Empire and Its Liberal Mission.” 198 Bergevin et al., Henri Bourassa, xxix. 199 The speech was printed as a Young Scot pamphlet entitled “Present Difficulties in Political Thinking and Acting.” 200 MacKenzie, “Essay and Reflection,” 737–8. 201 Heintzman, “Political Space and Economic Space,” 37. 202 Münkler, Empires, 5. 203 Cf. Henri Bourassa, “Maîtres et valets de l’Empire,” Le Devoir, 12 December 1913.

chapter five 1 The Ayr Branch of the Young Scots’ Society distributed a leaflet entitled “Conan Doyle and Home Rule” (1911) in which the author was reported to have changed his views on Irish Home Rule, given its success in Canada and South Africa. 2 “Home Rule. The True Imperial Policy. By Gracchus,” Reynold’s Newspaper, 5 March 1911. 3 Jalland, “United Kingdom devolution 1910–14,” 757. 4 Ibid., 784–5.

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Notes to pages 121–5

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5 The late Victorian theorist Albert Dicey’s The Law of the Constitution, which trumpeted the unitary state, famously countered this view. Burgess, The British Tradition of Federalism. 6 Mill, “Considerations on Representative Government,” 443. 7 Ibid. 8 Meadwell, “Nations, States, Unions.” 9 Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 59–61. 10 Mill, “Considerations on Representative Government,” 435; cf. O’Leary, “The Elements of Right-Sizing and Right-Peopling the State.” 11 Mill, “Considerations on Representative Government,” 444–5. 12 Hall, “How Homogeneous Need We Be?”165. 13 Burgess, The British Tradition of Federalism. 14 Young Scots’ Society, Manifesto and Appeal to the Scottish People on Scottish Home Rule, 2 15 Ibid.; cf. Walter Murray, “Scottish Home Rule in Relation to the Union of 1707.” 16 Young Scots’ Society, Manifesto and Appeal to the Scottish People on Scottish Home Rule, 3. 17 J.M. Hogge, “Scots Home Rule – the Argument Stated IV,” Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 8, June 1914, 119. 18 “Scottish Nationalism. Does the Scottish Liberal Association Make the Most of Itself? By a Young Scot,” Dundee Advertiser, 20 October 1910. 19 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/4, Walter Murray to Roland Muirhead, 27 April 1913. 20 “Scottish Nationalism. What a National Party Could Do. By a Young Scot,” Dundee Advertiser, 21 October 1910. 21 Young Scots’ Society, Manifesto and Appeal to the Scottish People on Scottish Home Rule, 3. 22 ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 2/63, Roland Muirhead, “SNC, Edinburgh Demonstration, 18 April 1911.” 23 “At Westminster. Our Parliamentary Letter. By a Scottish MP,” Scottish Nation, September 1914, 173. 24 Young Scots’ Society, Manifesto and Appeal to the Scottish People on Scottish Home Rule, 3. 25 Ibid. 26 J.M. Hogge, “Scots Home Rule – The Argument Stated V,” Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 9, July 1914, 135–6. 27 Ibid. 28 ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 2/47. 29 ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 3/80, “Muirhead Manuscript,” 96.

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Notes to pages 125–9

30 Young Scots’ Society, Manifesto and Appeal to the Scottish People on Scottish Home Rule, 2. 31 This was, in part, a reflection of the extension of the franchise in 1884. Although, women and 40 percent of the male population remained excluded. 32 Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain. 33 Three anonymous articles appeared in The Young Scot, vol. 2, no. 7, 1 April 1905, 80–1, entitled “The Future of the Young Scots Society.” Hector MacPherson, Walter Murray and John Peacock made further contributions in the following issue, The Young Scot, vol. 2, no. 8, 1 May 1905, 92, 96–7. 34 Ibid. 35 For example, James Steel had specifically conceived of a society that would promote national sentiment in Scotland. James Steel, “Letter to the Editor,” Edinburgh Evening News, 18 October 1900. 36 The available programs all contain at least one motion in support of Scottish Home Rule: 1902, 1903, 1904, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, and 1913. The issue itself appears to have been defeated, narrowly, on only one occasion, the 1902 Conference. Cf. The Scottish Nationalist, June 1903, 103. 37 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/8, Roland Muirhead to David Patton, Secretary, Glasgow South Suburban Branch, n.d. [April 1912], emphasis in original. 38 YSS Parliamentary Committee Newsletter, Edinburgh, July 1907. 39 Ibid. 40 Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 6. 41 Walter Murray, “Letter to the Editor,” Glasgow Herald, 11 April 1911. 42 Young Scots’ Society, Mr Lloyd George and Scottish Land Reform, 1. 43 Brown, “‘Echoes of Midlothian,’” 170–1, 181. January 1910: Liberals fifty-eight seats (54.2 percent), Unionists nine (39.6 percent), Labour two (5.1 percent), others one (1.1 percent); December 1910: Liberals fiftyeight seats (53.6 percent), Unionists nine (42.6 percent), Labour three (3.6 percent), Others none (0.2 percent). 44 Hanham, Scottish Nationalism, 95. 45 Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 22–6; Dunfermline Journal, 6 May 1911. 46 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/1, Roland Muirhead to J.M. Crosthwaite, YSS general secretary and treasurer, 5 May 1910. 47 The Young Scots Handbook was first published in 1906, and thereafter in 1907, 1908, 1910, and 1911. Significantly, by 1910 it was published in Glasgow, and not Edinburgh.

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Notes to pages 129–34

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48 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/4, Roland Muirhead to Walter Murray, 22 August 1911. 49 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/4, Walter Murray to Roland Muirhead, 22 August 1911, my emphasis. 50 Young Scots Handbook, 1910–11, 25–6; Young Scots Handbook, 1911– 12, 27–30. 51 Roland Muirhead “Letter to the Editor,” Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette, 13 May 1912. 52 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/1, Thomas Lochhead, YSS General Secretary, to Roland Muirhead, 12 December 1911. 53 “Lively Young Scots,” Dundee Advertiser, 6 May 1912. 54 “Scottish Nationalism. Does the Scottish Liberal Association Make the Most of Itself? By a Young Scot,” Dundee Advertiser, 20 October 1910. 55 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/1, Thomas Lochhead to Roland Muirhead, 31 January 1912. 56 Roland Muirhead objected to Herbert Asquith’s name, the British prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party, being used as an honorary president of the Society. NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/7, Kenneth Cameron, YSS vice-president and YSS Ayr Branch, to Roland Muirhead, 13 July 1909. 57 W.K. Brymer, president, YSS Glasgow Maryhill Branch, “Letter to the Editor,” Glasgow Herald, 13 October 1910. 58 Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 6. 59 Ibid. 60 Harry Anderson Watt, Liberal MP for the College Division of Glasgow, “Letter to the Editor,” Glasgow Herald, 5 September 1911. 61 Alexander MacLaren, president YSS Western Council, “Letter to the Editor,” Glasgow Herald, 4 September 1911. 62 “Tradeston By-Election. The Young Scots’ Action. By a Young Scot,” Reynold’s Newspaper, 2 July 1911. 63 Ibid. 64 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/4, Walter Murray to Roland Muirhead, 4 September 1911. 65 Evening News Glasgow, 7 September 1911; “Kilmarnock Burghs ByElection. Young Scots and Mr Gladstone’s Candidature,” The Scotsman, 7 September 1911, 5. 66 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 148/3, Alexander MacLaren to Roland Muirhead, 8 September 1911. 67 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 148/3, Alexander MacLaren to William Laughland, 16 September 1911.

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Notes to pages 134–41

68 Alexander MacLaren, “Letter to the Editor,” Glasgow Herald, 21 September 1911. 69 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/4, Roland Muirhead to Walter Murray, 8 September 1911, emphasis in original. 70 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 148/3, Alexander MacLaren to Roland Muirhead, 28 September 1911. 71 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/1, Roland Muirhead to Thomas Lochhead, 1 January 1912, emphasis in original. 72 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/1, Thomas Lochhead to Roland Muirhead, 31 January 1912. 73 Ibid. 74 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/8, pro forma letter from Robert Niven, secretary of YSS Partick Branch, 14 November 1911. 75 Alexander MacLaren, “Letter to the Editor,” Glasgow Herald, 7 July 1913. 76 MacLeod, Scotland and the Liberal Party 1880–1900, 32–3. 77 Edinburgh Evening News, 6 May 1912. 78 The Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 7, May 1914, 86. 79 GUL, Scott MSS, MS. Gen. 1465/2, Political Diary, 19 March 1911. 80 GUL, Scott MSS, MS. Gen. 1465/4, Political Diary, 10 August 1913. 81 Dyer, Capable Citizens and Improvident Democrats, 92. 82 Ibid., 101. 83 Ibid., 102. 84 Ibid., 101–2. 85 ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 2/51, William Webster to Roland Muirhead, 8 March 1910. 86 “Tradeston By-Election,” Reynold’s Newspaper, 2 July 1911. 87 Viz. Finlay, A Partnership for Good? 56. 88 “Scottish Home Rule. Claim by Young Scots Conference,” Scotsman, 6 May 1912, 8. 89 Scott, Two Years of Liberalism, 12–13. 90 Jalland, “United Kingdom Devolution 1910–14,” 763. 91 GUL, Scott MSS, MS. Gen. 1465/4, Political Diary, 22 February 1912. 92 Ibid., 26 February 1912. 93 Jalland, “United Kingdom Devolution 1910–14,” 763. 94 A.W. Ponsonby, “Scotland and Federalism,” The Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 8, June 1914, 117–18. 95 Ibid. 96 Jalland, “United Kingdom Devolution 1910–14,” 775. 97 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 154/3, Roland Muirhead to D.V. Pirie, 20 June 1912. 98 Jalland, “United Kingdom Devolution 1910–14,” 771–2.

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Notes to pages 141–4

273

99 As part of its home rule campaign, the YSS organized a public meeting in Glasgow in 1907, addressed by John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, in which Irish and Scottish Home Rule were linked. This was replicated with a meeting in Edinburgh in 1911, which attracted an audience of three thousand; Evening Times (Glasgow), 30 November 1907; Glasgow Herald, Scotsman, Daily Record, Dundee Advertiser, 6 May 1911. 100 Of the thirty-nine YSS speakers who expressed a willingness to speak on Home Rule, only two, William Laughland and Roland Muirhead, specified Federal Home Rule. Young Scots’ Society, Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 27–30. 101 There were nineteen Liberal MPs – J.S. Ainsworth, W.A. Chapple, J.W. Cleland, Godfrey P. Collins, W.H. Cowan, Henry Dalziel, James P. Gibson, John D. Hope, Alpheus C. Morton, Robert Munro, R.C. Munro Ferguson, D.V. Pirie, W.M.R. Pringle, A. Rolland Rainy, W. Waring, J. Cathcart Wason, Henry A. Watt, J. Galloway Weir, Thomas F. Wilson – and two Labour MPs, George N. Barnes and Alex Wilkie. Fiery Cross, no. 36, October 1910, 5. 102 Glasgow, 25 October 1910; Edinburgh, 18 April 1911; Aberdeen, 12 January 1912; Perth, 5 February 1912; Dundee, 8 February 1912. 103 ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 2/63, typed report entitled “Scottish National Committee.” 104 Rainy, Life of Adam Rolland Rainy, mp , 348. 105 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 154/3, D.V. Pirie to Roland Muirhead, 17 November 1910. 106 Alexander MacLaren, “Report of Western Council, 1911–12,” Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12, 19. 107 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/1, Thomas Lochhead, YSS secretary, to Roland Muirhead, 9 March 1912. 108 Dunfermline Journal, “Young Scots Conference in Dunfermline,” 6 May 1911. 109 NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/4, Walter Murray to Roland Muirhead, 5 July 1912. 110 Ibid. 111 ML, Muirhead MSS., Box 3/80, “Muirhead Manuscript,” 95. 112 GUL, Scott MSS, MS. Gen. 1465/3, Political Diary, 15 July 1912. 113 Ibid. 114 ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 3/80, “Muirhead Manuscript,” 97. 115 “Indignant Young Scot,” “Letter to the Editor,” Glasgow Herald, 8 July 1913.

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Notes to pages 144–51

116 “Winona” [Muirhead using the name of his Bridge of Weir residence], “Letter to the Editor,” Glasgow Herald, 9 July 1913. 117 Alexander MacLaren, “Letter to the Editor,” Glasgow Herald, 15 July 1913. 118 Scottish Home Rule Council, Annual Report, 1912–13, 2. 119 Johnston, Memories, 232. 120 However, this optimism was tempered by comments such as those by Lloyd George, which seemed to indicate that Scottish Home Rule was not on the government’s agenda; cf. “RJB” [unknown correspondent], “Letter to the Editor: The Government and Scottish Home Rule,” The Scotsman, 9 February 1914, 10. 121 “Home Rule Coming, Mr Munro’s Assurance, Young Scots and Scotland’s Claims, Suffrage Differences,” Dundee Advertiser, 18 May 1914. 122 Ibid. 123 ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 3/ 80, “Muirhead Manuscript,” 97. 124 Harvie, Scotland and Nationalism, 246 125 The Scottish Nation, “At Westminster,” vol. 1, no. 9, July 1914, 140. 126 The Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 3, January 1914, 36. 127 The Scottish Nation, vol.1, no. 1, November 1913, 13, my emphasis. 128 Despite the inclusion of the lord provosts of Glasgow and Dundee, these were overwhelmingly provosts from small town Scotland. 129 The downturn in Liberal Party fortunes cannot explain this development, since Liberals continued to dominate small-town Scotland; ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 2/47. 130 Paterson, “Scottish Autonomy and the Future of the Welfare State,” 57. 131 A fact only fleetingly acknowledged in Paterson’s account. Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland. 132 MacLeod, Scotland and the Liberal Party 1880–1900, 260. 133 Alexander MacLaren, “Young Scots reply to Tory Criticisms,” Reynold’s Newspaper, 3 May 1913. 134 Cf. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty.

chapter six 1 Heintzman, “Political Space and Economic Space,” 36; cf. Silver, The French Canadian Idea of Confederation. 2 Heintzman, “Political Space and Economic Space,” 36–7 3 Olivar Asselin, “Notre programme,” Le Nationaliste, 6 March 1904: “Pour les provinces canadiennes, dans leurs relations avec le pouvoir fédéral, la plus large mesure d’autonomie compatible avec le maintien du lien federal.”

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275

4 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 32–3; Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 650. 5 O’Connell, “The Ideas of Henri Bourassa.” Interestingly, commentators often declare that much of the Ligue’s agenda has since been adopted, but this misunderstands the Ligue’s position. Canada today is formally uninational and not binational (though it is officially bilingual), multicultural and not bicultural. 6 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 4. 7 Ibid. 8 Bourassa, “Le patriotisme canadien-français,” 434: “Quelques-uns de nos compatriotes envisagent avec bonheur le jour où nous reconstituerons en Amérique, de droit comme de fait, une nouvelle France, un état libre où notre race dominera sans partage: C’est assurément là un rêve légitime et attrayant …. Mais c’est encore un rêve; et ce qu’il faut faire, c’est le devoir du moment.” 9 Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 45. 10 Ibid. 11 Bourassa, La Langue française au Canada, 45: “Ce n’est pas le français qui menace l’unité nationale du Canada, c’est l’anglais, qui permet aux influences américaines de pénétrer rapidement dans toutes les sphères de la vie intellectuelle, sociale et économique du Canada Anglais” “la présence d’un groupe ethnique considérable, parlant une langue différente, ayant d’autres traditions et un autre idéal que ceux du peuple américain.” 12 Ibid.: “C’était la pensée de Cartier, agrée et favorisée par Macdonald, lorsqu’il entrepris de faire du Manitoba un second Québec.” 13 Ibid. 44: “Je veux démontrer qu’il y a pour la nation canadienne tout entière, pour les Anglo-protestants comme pour les Canadiens-français catholique, un avantage marqué et même une nécessité rigoureuse de conserver la langue française et d’en favoriser l’expansion dans toutes les parties de la Confédération.” 14 Ibid. 49: “un jour viendra sûrement où les Anglo-Canadiens, sortis de l’ornière où les retiennent les préoccupations bornées du mercantilisme, nous remercieront à genoux d’avoir conservé au Canada cet élément inappréciable de civilisation et de culture supérieure.” 15 McRoberts, Misconceiving Canada, 19–24. 16 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 22. 17 Lacombe, La rencontre de deux peuples élus, 78–81. 18 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 651. 19 Ibid., 656.

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Notes to pages 154–9

20 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 22. 21 Bourassa, La Langue française au Canada, 35–6: “L’unité du peuple suisse s’est consommée, parce qu’après des luttes séculaires de races et de religions, inspirées de l’esprit sectaire et étroit qui règne encore au Canada anglais, les divers groupes du peuple suisse sont tombés d’accord pour baser l’unité nationale sur la liberté de chacun de ces groupes et le respect de leurs droits particuliers.” 22 Ibid., 35: “Si l’on va jusqu’à prétendre qu’un peuple bi-ethnique et bilingue ne peut former une nation homogène et que la minorité doit parler la langue de la majorité, on se heurte aux démentis les plus éclatants de l’histoire … la Suisse est-elle moins prête à défendre ses libertés et à protéger l’intégrité de son territoire contre tout agresseur?” 23 Olivar Asselin, Le Nationaliste, 12 March 1905: “l’exemple de la Belgique et de la Suisse est là pour prouver que la coexistence de plusieurs nationalités distinctes ne nuit pas à l’avancement matériel et intellectuel d’un pays.” 24 Bourassa, La Langue française au Canada, 40, emphasis in original: “un seul empereur, un seul Empire, un seul drapeau, une seule langue.” 25 Levitt, Henri Bourassa on Imperialism and Bi-culturalism, 12. 26 Bourassa, Ireland and Canada. 27 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 638. 28 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 36. 29 Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies. 30 Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 44; cf. Jules Fournier, “Examen de conscience,” Le Nationaliste, 29 February 1909. 31 Harvie, The Lights of Liberalism. 32 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 31. 33 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 522. 34 Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 45. 35 Bourassa, “Le patriotisme canadien-français,” 430: “je ne crois pas qu’il soit possible ni désirable que la masse de notre peuple [French Canadian] apprenne et parle l’anglais … de ceux qui pour leur fortune, leur culture intellectuelle et leur situation politique et sociale doivent diriger notre peuple et maintenir l’union entre nous et nos voisins. À ceux-là incombe le devoir d’apprendre l’anglais, de se rapprocher des classes dirigeants de la majorité anglaise, d’étudier à fond le tempérament, les aspirations et les tendances des Anglo-Canadiens. Le même devoir s’impose d’ailleurs aux classes dirigeantes du Canada anglais.” 36 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 33. 37 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 637.

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Notes to pages 159–65

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38 Quoted in Levitt, Henri Bourassa on Imperialism and Bi-culturalism, 159, my emphasis. 39 Quoted in Bergevin et al., Henri Bourassa, xxxvii–iii: “… bonnes volontés de toutes les nuances: rouges, bleues et nationalistes, Anglais et Français, catholiques et protestants. Envoyer à la Législature des hommes habiles, honnêtes et indépendants plus attachés au pays qu’au parti.” 40 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 119. 41 Stevenson, Parallel Paths, 112. 42 Driedger, Multi-ethnic Canada, 190–4. 43 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 497, 513. 44 Ibid., 529. 45 Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 313. 46 Lavergne, Les Écoles du Nord Ouest, 18: “En constituant le Canadien français, qui habite le pays depuis sa découverte, l’égal en droits et privilèges du Doukobor ou du Galicien qui viennent de débarquer, nous avons ouvert entre l’Est et l’Ouest canadiens un gouffé que rien ne saura combler.” 47 Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 312. 48 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 547–9. 49 “La Langue française dans l’administration fédérale,” Le Nationaliste, 10 March 1907: “[L]es Canadiens français sont bannis de toutes les positions de quelque importance.” 50 Jules Fournier, “No French Need Apply,” Le Nationaliste, 5 July 1908. 51 Neatby, Laurier and a Liberal Quebec, 165. 52 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 69. 53 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 555–6. 54 AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to the manager of the Great North Western Telegraph Company, 9 June 1902. 55 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 69–70. 56 Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 302. 57 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 540, 547. 58 Ibid., 520, 553. 59 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 653. 60 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 120–1. 61 Ibid., 121–2. 62 Quoted in ibid., 122: “C’est en grande partie en cédant à votre [Asselin’s] pression que j’ai successivement abandonné mon mandat federal.” 63 Henri Bourassa, “Le nationalisme et les parties IV,” Le Devoir, 27 May 1913: “À certains égards, cette incursion dans un domaine nouveau pour nous fut peut-être une erreur.” 64 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 34.

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Notes to pages 166–9

65 “La Vie Rurale,” Le Nationaliste, 13 September 1909: “pour édifier une nation canadienne, il faut non seulement conserver les forces du Canada au Canada (anti-impérialisme) et assurer la paix intérieure (respect des droits constitutionnels des provinces, peuplement rationnel du pays, etc.), mais avant tout, faire servir les ressources naturelles au bien-être et au contentement du peuple. Pour exprimer la chose autrement, nous regardons une bonne législation sociale et économique, soit dans l’ordre fédéral, soit dans l’ordre provincial, comme la condition première de la grandeur nationale.” 66 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 44. 67 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 553; Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 122–3. 68 Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 171. 69 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 556. 70 “Bourassa au Monument National,” Le Nationaliste, 4 June 1908. 71 Quebec’s electoral law at the time allowed candidates to stand in two ridings simultaneously; however, they could only represent a single riding. Bourassa chose Saint Hyacinthe. Morin, “A Note on Simultaneous Candidacies in the Quebec Legislature,” 22. 72 Offer, The First World War, 151. 73 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 52. 74 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 57–65; Stevenson, Parallel Paths, 139, 194. 75 “Deux politiques,” Le Nationaliste, 21 July 1907. 76 “La situation,” Le Nationaliste, 14 July 1907. 77 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 47–56. 78 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 654. 79 Ibid., 672. 80 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 575. 81 Thério, Jules Fournier, 108–12. 82 Bourassa, La langue française au Canada, 50: “Si nous laissons triompher le faux principe que l’unité de langue est essentielle à l’unité de chacune des provinces anglaises, les anglicisateurs auront raison d’en pousser plus loin l’application et d’affirmer que l’unité nationale, que le maintien de la langue française, n’est pas plus légitime dans la province de Québec que dans l’Ontario, le Manitoba, l’Alberta, la Saskatchewan, la NouvelleÉcosse ou le Nouveau-Brunswick.” 83 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 4. 84 Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 75.

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Notes to pages 170–6

85 86 87 88 89 90

91 92

93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105

106 107 108 109

279

Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 616. Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 252–6. Quoted in Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 581. Laurendeau, “Henri Bourassa,” 150–1. Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 159–62; Pelletier-Baillargeon, “Olivar Asselin.” “Le Sou de la pensée française. Interview du père du mouvement, M. Olivar Asselin, président de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal,” L’Action, no. 120, 26 July 1913. Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 634–5. AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to Abbé J.A.M. Brosseau, 23 October 1913: “nous faisons du catholisme un des traits essentiels du caractère national canadien-français” “Faut-il faire observer que c’est le français et non le catholicisme, qui est attaqué à l’heure actuelle en Ontario; que les écoles catholiques où le français ne s’enseigne pas sont bien traitées, par l’État, et par l’Orangisme; que par conséquent, avec quelque joie que nous ayons servi la cause de l’enseignement catholique, nous défendions d’abord et principalement l’enseignement français?” Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 69. Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 262. Ibid., 79. Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 159; Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 127. Jules Fournier, “Ceux qui vont mourir,” Le Nationaliste, 12 August 1906. Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 39. Jules Fournier, “Le prix du sang,” Le Nationaliste, 13 January 1907. Thério, Jules Fournier, 81–2; Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 158–9. Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 40. Ibid., 41. Ibid., 38–43. Ibid. AMM, FOA, Wilfrid Gascon to Olivar Asselin, 30 April 1901: “pour favoriser la division du N.O. [North Western Territories] en deux provinces dont l’une française, celle de la Saskatchewan. Il faut exiger une division de l’est à l’ouest en lieu du nord au sud qui isolerait les colonies c.-fr. [French Canadian] des districts d’Edmonton et de Prince Albert.” Quoted in Levitt, Henri Bourassa on Imperialism and Bi-culturalism, 114. Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 620. Staples, “Consociationalism at the Provincial Level.” Until the formation of the Bloc Québécois, nationalist parties, such as the Union nationale and the Parti Québécois, confined themselves to

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110 111

112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

Notes to pages 176–82

the provincial scene (the Bloc populaire in the 1940s is an exception). In contrast, Irish nationalists at the turn of the century, without an assembly of their own, had only the Westminster parliament to voice their grievances. Laurendeau, “Henri Bourassa,” 149. Bourassa, Le Devoir et la guerre, 4: “L’histoire du Canada, depuis la conquête jusqu’à la conclusion du pacte fédéral, c’est le récit de nos triomphes par la lutte opiniâtre et constante; l’histoire de la Confédération canadienne, c’est la série lamentable de nos déchéances et de nos défaites par la fausse conciliation.” Noel, “Canadian Responses to Ethnic Conflict,” 46. Cf. Lacombe, La rencontre de deux peuples élus, 92; Stevenson, Parallel Paths, 179, 184. Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 43. Bourassa, La Langue française au Canada, 32. Darwin, “Empire and Ethnicity,” especially 395–7. Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 274. Riga and Kennedy, “Tolerant Majorities, Loyal Minorities and ‘Ethnic Reversals.’” Cf. Gray, Two Faces of Liberalism, 128. Cf. O’Leary, “An Iron Law of Federalism and Nationalism?”

chapter seven 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

The focus is on Francophone, rather than Anglophone, Quebec civil society. MacLeod, Scotland and the Liberal Party 1880–1900, 9. Brown, “‘Echoes of Midlothian,’” 65–6. It was not until the 1920s that the Presbyterian establishment became profoundly anti-Catholic and anti-Irish. Brown, The Social History of Religion in Scotland since 1730, 202; cf. Rosie, The Sectarian Myth in Scotland. Harvie, “Before the Breakthrough, 1886–1922,” 11. Scottish Patriot, vol. 1, no. 6, July 1903, 43. Hogge, The Facts of Gambling; Hogge and Scott, Licensing in Scandinavia. GUL, Scott MSS, MS. Gen. 1465/4, Political Diary, 9 July 1913. Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf. Ibid., 110; Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 22–3. Bourassa, “Le patriotisme canadien-français,” 439: “[S]’il existe ici une classe dirigeante, c’est bien le clergé.” Ibid., 440: “On peut discuter l’attitude du clergé dans certains circonstances difficiles: les guerres de l’Empire, la révolte de 1837; mais à moin d’ignorer notre histoire, ou de la lire en sectaire ou en badaud, on ne peut

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Notes to pages 183–6

13

14 15

16

17 18 19 20 21 22

281

contester que le rôle du clergé fut à la fois ferme, conciliant, éclairé et profondément patriotique.” Jules Fournier, “Un homme sûr de lui,” Le Nationaliste, 2 August 1908: “Nous croyons, nous autres, Canadiens francais, que le rôle du clergé catholique au Canada, depuis les débuts de la colonie et notamment depuis la cession du pays à l’Angleterre, a été un rôle admirable. Nous ne prétendons point que tous les prêtres sont absolument sans defaut. Nous ne faisons même nulle difficulté d’admettre qu’en face des conditions nouvelles où notre peuple s’est trouvé placé depuis 40 ans le clergé s’est peutêtre trop cantonné dans des méthodes qui auraient admirablement réussi jusque là, mais qui sont peu faites pour faire face aux exigences d’une ère nouvelle. Nous sommes même prêts à avouer qu’il n’a peut-être pas eu toute la clairvoyance, du moins toute la souplesse voulue, pour suivre l’évolution universelle, et nous mettre en état de la suivre nous-mêmes. Mais ce que nous soutenons, c’est qu’en dépit de tout cela, il est encore celui de tous nos corps sociaux qui montre le plus de dévouement, de patriotisme et de désintéressement. Et nous croyons enfin que jamais un corps social n’a fait autant pour un peuple que notre clergé n’a fait pour nous.” Lamonde, “Le libéralisme et le passage dans le XXe siècle,” 32. AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to Raoul Asselin, 12 September 1902: “J’ai été depuis une dizaine d’années en relations avec des catholiques, des protestants, des libre-penseurs; c’est peut-être chez ces derniers que j’ai trouvé le plus de charité et le moins de pharisaïsme; je n’ai trouvé nulle part plus d’hypocrisie et plus de fiel que chez les ecclésiastiques formés à Rome, à l’école italienne: ils ont invariablement la vengeance peu bruyante, mais féroce.” AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to Abbé J.A.M. Brosseau, 23 October 1913, emphasis in original: “la Société devant être avant tout nationale, je n’ai pas voulu dire et je ne vois pas comment l’on a pu comprendre que je voulais dire qu’elle ne devait pas tenir compte de l’intérêt religieux: j’entendais seulement, à l’encontre des partisans d’une certaine Pensée catholique française – que pour toute société nationale catholique ou non, il y a des questions où l’intérêt réligieux n’est pas nécessairement mêlé, où l’on a tout de toujours le vouloir mêler.” Pérez-Díaz, The Return of Civil Society, chapter 3. Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 67. Brown, The Social History of Religion in Scotland since 1730, 197–200. Knox, “Rev. James Barr,” 62. Humes, “Science, Religion and Education,” 115, emphasis in original. Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 70.

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Notes to pages 186–90

23 There was no corresponding “lass o’ pairts.” Cf. Corr, “Where Is the ‘lass o’pairts?’” 24 The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 10, 1 July 1904, 106. 25 Scottish Patriot, vol. 1, no. 6, July 1903, 43. 26 The Young Scot, vol. 2, no. 7, 1 April 1905, 82. 27 Davie, The Democratic Intellect. 28 McPherson, “An Angle on the Geist,” 219. 29 Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 69. 30 “Tradeston By-Election,” Reynold’s Newspaper, 2 July 1911. 31 “Young Scots Society. Education Committee. Queries,” questionnaire, n.d. 32 Knox, “Rev. James Barr,” 62. Young Scots, themselves, were divided on the issue. The YSS 1907 Conference narrowly voted against using local government “rates” (property tax) to fund school meals. Cf. “The Young Scots Society,” The Scotsman, 8 April 1907, 9. Stewart offers an instructive overview of the politics of the 1908 Education (Scotland) Act, which sanctioned school meals and medical inspection in Scottish schools. Cf. Stewart, “‘This Injurious Measure.’” 33 Young Scots’ Society, Sixty Points for Scottish Home Rule, 43. 34 Anglophone schooling was administered by a parallel Protestant Committee; within the Catholic system, there was separate administration of Anglophone Catholics, mostly of Irish origin. 35 Lamonde, “Le libéralisme et le passage dans le XXe siècle,” 22. 36 Heap, “Libéralisme et éducation au Québec à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècles,” 108–9; Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 612–15. 37 Ryan, The Clergy and Economic Growth in Quebec, 223–4. 38 Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 51. 39 Ibid., 55. 40 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 622. 41 Ryan, The Clergy and Economic Growth in Quebec, 230 42 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 611. 43 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 80. 44 Dutil, “The Politics of Progressivism in Québec”; Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 615–16; Heap, “Libéralisme et éducation au Québec à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècles,” 110–12. 45 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 80. 46 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 57. 47 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and Golden Calf, 89. 48 Thério, Jules Fournier, 123. 49 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 87.

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Notes to pages 190–6

283

50 Jules Fournier, “En réponse à la Verité,” Le Nationaliste, 17 January 1909: “Si le peuple de chez nous veut enfin sortir de l’ornière, prendre sa part de richesse et d’influence et surtout atteindre l’accroissement numérique qui seul pourra le sauver, il lui faut améliorer son système d’enseignement …” 51 Heap, “Libéralisme et éducation au Québec à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècles,” 118: “conquête économique par le savoir.” 52 Thério, Jules Fournier, 123, 69. 53 Jules Fournier, “En réponse à la Verité,” Le Nationaliste, 17 January 1909. 54 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 88; Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 381. 55 Thério, Jules Fournier, 105–6. 56 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 84. 57 Heap, “Libéralisme et éducation au Québec à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècles,” 118: “[A]u bout du compte, ce sont les forces de la tradition qui, dans le champ éducatif du moins, semblent en perte de vitesse au début du XXe siècle.” 58 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 618: “fouillis des structures et des programmes.” 59 Cf. Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 70. 60 Ibid., 36, 48–50. 61 Ibid., 64, 49. 62 MacQueen, “Regiam Majestatem, Scots Law and National Identity,” 24. 63 MacLeod, Scotland and the Liberal Party 1880–1900, 14. 64 Bergevin et al., Henri Bourassa, xxiii, xxiv, xxx. 65 Tocqueville, Journey to America, 186–8. 66 Dickinson and Young, A Short History of Québec, 171–3. 67 Normand, “Les juristes et le libéralisme au tournant du XXe siècle,” 214. 68 Ibid., 216–18. 69 Ibid., 214: “ils [lawyers] véhiculaient dans la communauté juridique des valeurs présentes dans la société civile. Toutefois, au même moment, ils interprétaient ou appliquaient un droit fortement imprégné par le libéralisme.” 70 Ibid., 229: “Les juristes formaient un groupe composite où les diveres idéologies cohabitaient, qu’il s’agisse du libéralisme, de l’ultramontanisme ou du nationalisme.” 71 Morton, Unionist Nationalism, 47–8. 72 Morton, “Scottish Rights and ‘Centralisation’ in the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” 275. 73 Smith, “Labour Tradition in Glasgow and Liverpool,” 36. 74 Cf. Young Scots’ Society, Manifesto and Appeal to the Scottish People on Scottish Home Rule, 3.

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284

Notes to pages 196–202

75 Morton, “Scottish Rights and ‘Centralisation’ in the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” 275. 76 Dutil, “The Politics of Progressivism in Quebec,” 463. 77 Ibid., 464. 78 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 657–8. 79 AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to W.D. Lighthall, honorary secretary of the Union of Canadian Municipalities, 10 August 1903. 80 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 52; Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 658. 81 AMM, FOA, pro forma letter, 28 August 1911, used by Asselin in his electoral campaign during the 1911 federal election. 82 Thério, Jules Fournier, 74–8, 173–6. 83 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 47–56. 84 Ibid., 51. 85 Olivar Asselin quoted in Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 52: “J’ai cru dans ma jeunesse … à la nécessité de la concurrence dans tous les services publics … Je suis depuis longtemps convaincu que certains services ne peuvent se faire en concurrence, mais au contraire, par leur nature même doivent être exploités en monopole … La seule condition nécessaire, essentielle, indispensable, c’est que le public ait sur l’exploitation, directement ou par ses représentants, un contrôle effectif.” 86 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 657–8. 87 AMM, FOA, pro forma letter from Olivar Asselin, 28 August 1911, used by Asselin in his electoral campaign during the 1911 federal election. 88 Lamonde, “Le libéralisme et le passage dans le XXe siècle,” 31–2. 89 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 610; Lamonde, “Le libéralisme et le passage dans le XXe siècle,” 19–20 90 Cf. Bonville, La Presse québécoise de 1884 à 1914. 91 Young Scots’ Society Glasgow Branch Syllabus, 1901–02. 92 The east coast Edinburgh Evening News and Dundee Advertiser remained Liberal but did not reach beyond their immediate regions. 93 Murray, “Report of Publication Committee, 1909–1910,” 14–15. 94 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 28–9. 95 Dutil, “The Politics of Progressivism in Quebec,” 450. 96 Dutil, “The Politics of Muzzling,” 117–18. 97 Thério, Jules Fournier, 126–7, 143. 98 Les Débats, no. 1, 3 December 1899, 1: “Notre journal n’est vendu et ne sera jamais à vendre à aucune coterie. Il agira selon sa conscience, en s’inspirant de la justice et du droit du faible, en respectant les bonnes intentions de chacun.”

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Notes to pages 202–7

285

99 Asselin explicitly wanted Le Nationaliste to fill the void left by Les Débats and its successor Le Combat. 100 Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 301. 101 Le Nationaliste, nos. 18–34, 2 July–22 October 1905; Le Nationaliste, no. 38, 19 November 1905. 102 Lamonde, “Le libéralisme et le passage dans le XXe siècle,” 32–3. 103 Hayward, “Le littérature de la modernité et le libéralisme nationaliste au Québec entre 1899 et 1916,” 171, 183, emphasis in original: “le libéralisme tend à favoriser l’innovation artistique préconisée et recherchée par ces écrivains de la modernité.” 104 Le Devoir, 10 January 1910: “les mauvais livres, les theâtres immoraux, les boissons fortes (autres que vins et bières)” “Nous voulons protéger le public et surtout le public ouvrier, contre l’exploitation dont il est victim.” 105 Lamonde, “Le libéralisme et le passage dans le XXe siècle,” 17. 106 AMM, FOA, Wilfrid Gascon to Olivar Asselin, 2 March 1904, 2: “le plus grand ennemi du peuple, parce que c’est lui qui barre la route au progrès des idées de l’esprit public et à l’indépendance de la critique qui renseigne l’homme du commun sur les choses qu’il ne connait pas, c’est cette puissance clérical qu’interdit les journaux présents.” 107 Ibid., 3: “Avant longtemps tu passeras pour un ennemi de l’ordre et de l’autorité. De ce jour, tu deviendras suspect aux curés, et les évêques t’admonesteront, car toute manifestation d’indépendance trouble ces genslà dans la jouissance paisible de leurs avantages qui sont mis en danger par l’esprit de critique éveillé.” 108 Cf. Le Moine, Deux loges montréalaises du Grand Orient de France. 109 Roy, Progrès, harmonie, liberté, 32. 110 Hutchison, A Political History of Scotland, 1832–1924, 240. 111 Ryan, The Clergy and Economic Growth in Quebec, 280. 112 Roy, Progrès, harmonie, liberté. 113 Ibid., 82. Anglophone businessmen were represented by the overwhelmingly English-speaking Board of Trade, an economically dominant organization that represented the interests of big business. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 526–8. 114 Roy, Progrès, harmonie, liberté, 189, 274. 115 Ibid., 266, 248, 273. 116 Ibid., 276. 117 Ibid., 280. 118 Linteau, “Quelques réflexions autour de la bourgeoisie québécoise”; Linteau, “Alphonse Desjardins.” 119 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 191–2.

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286

120 121 122 123 124 125

126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143

144

Notes to pages 207–11

Linteau, Histoire de Montréal depuis la Confédération, 151. Murrow, Henri Bourassa and French-Canadian Nationalism, 53. Ouimet, Biographies canadiennes-françaises, 125. Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 160. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 191–2. AMM, FOA, Olivar Asselin to Alphonse Racine, 9 September 1911: “Je disais à tous mes amis que l’élément qui fait le plus honneur à notre race à Montréal, ce n’est pas ceux qui se sont enrichis uniquement au jeu, ni les hommes de professions libérales, mais les industriels et les négociants qui, comme les Rolland, les Hébert, les Laporte et les Racine, se sont fait une situation de premier ordre dans les affaires en dépit de la concurrence anglaise.” Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 464–5. Katznelson and Zolberg, Working-Class Formation; Mann, The Sources of Social Power. Smith, “Labour Tradition in Glasgow and Liverpool,” 45. Ibid., 38. Young Scots’ Society, Sixty Points for Scottish Home Rule, 57. NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/4, Roland Muirhead to Walter Murray, 5 September 1911. NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/4, Roland Muirhead to Walter Murray, 8 September 1911. NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 146/4, Walter Murray to Roland Muirhead, 1 May 1912. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 540–3, 655–7. Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 101–2, 104; Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 547–8, 555. Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 549–50. Rouillard, “L’action politique ouvrière, 1899–1915,” 282–3. Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 105, 116. Ibid., 107. Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 543. Roy, Progrès, harmonie, liberté, 34. Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 102–3. Mrs Crosthwaite and Mrs Napier continued to participate as Young Scot speakers, while Mrs Saunders and Mrs Shanks participated at the 1914 YSS Annual Conference in support of women’s suffrage in a Scottish Parliament. Young Scots’ Society, Young Scots Handbook, 1911–12; “Scottish Home Rule, Young Scots at Perth,” Glasgow Herald, 18 May 1914. Hutchison, A Political History of Scotland, 1832–1924, 232.

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Notes to pages 211–19

287

145 King, “The Scottish Women’s Suffrage Movement,” 133–5. 146 Ibid., 131. 147 Cf. Brailsford, “The Case for the Conciliation Bill”; and Scott, “The Case against Women’s Suffrage.” 148 In an apparent instance of history repeating itself, the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the 1990s sought to improve the representation of women within a future Scottish Parliament. 149 “Scottish Home Rule. Young Scots at Perth,” Glasgow Herald, 18 May 1914. 150 Paterson, The Autonomy of Modern Scotland, 58. 151 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 592–8. 152 Dickinson and Young, A Short History of Québec, 256–7. 153 Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 585. 154 Thério, Jules Fournier, 123. 155 Trofimenkoff, “Henri Bourassa and ‘the woman question,’” 3–4. 156 “Mr Jacob Primmer’s Home Rule Protests,” Edinburgh Evening News, 17 November 1913. 157 Scottish Patriot, vol. 2, no. 18, June 1904, 66. 158 John Wilson [Caledonian], “The Jew. A Destructive Element in National Life,” Scottish Patriot, no. 21, October 1904, 130. 159 Rome, The Jewish Biography of Henri Bourassa, 47–51. 160 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 547–9. 161 Asselin, “The Jews in Montreal,” 18. 162 “Campaigne criminelle,” L’Action, 1 November 1913: “Nous [French Canadians] froisse instinctivement,” “une forme les plus aiguës de l’intolérance contemporaine,” “les Juifs forment dans notre population la classe la plus sobre, le plus laborieuse, la plus paisible et la plus respectueuse des lois.” 163 Asselin, “The Jews in Montreal,” 18. 164 Roy, Progrès, harmonie, liberté, 34. 165 Ibid., 27: “il n’est point besoin d’être anticlérical pour être libéral.”

conclusion 1 O’Connell, “The Ideas of Henri Bourassa,” 366–7. 2 Biagini, Gladstone. 3 Hudson Meadwell convincingly describes Mazzini as a “republican patriot,” yet it was the link Mazzini drew between liberalism and nationalism that was the Young Scots’ focus. Meadwell, “Republics, Nations and Transitions to Modernity,” 31–3.

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288

Notes to pages 219–24

4 Young Scots’ Society Partick Branch Syllabus, 1910–11, emphasis in original. 5 Harvie, The Lights of Liberalism, 100–4, 156. 6 Sandiford, “W.E. Gladstone and Liberal-Nationalist Movements.” 7 Biagini, Gladstone, 60–5. 8 O’Connell, “The Ideas of Henri Bourassa,” 366–72. 9 Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship. 10 Young Scots’ Society, Manifesto and Appeal to the Scottish People on Scottish Home Rule, 2. 11 Bergevin et al., Henri Bourassa, xxiii. 12 Bourassa, Les Écoles du Nord-Ouest, 28: “Chercher l’union des deux races au Canada, en dehors du respect mutuel qu’elles doivent à leurs droits respectifs, c’est édifier la nation sur une base fragile, c’est lui donner comme une pierre angulaire un élément de ruine et de destruction.” 13 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 23. 14 Rumilly, Histoire de la province de Québec, tome XI, 192. 15 Nish, Inventaire de la correspondance publique d’Henri Bourassa, 19. 16 Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 141; O’Connell, “The Ideas of Henri Bourassa,” 363–6; Bélanger, “Henri Bourassa.” 17 Laurendeau, “Henri Bourassa,” 149. 18 Quoted in Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf, 23. 19 Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 512. 20 Bourassa’s grandfather, Louis-Joseph Papineau, was similarly torn; his biographer refers to him as “a divided soul.” Ouellet, Louis-Joseph Papineau. 21 Hayward, Le Conflit des régionalistes et des “exotiques,” 266: “il distingue nettement entre la question de la langue et celle de la religion, position peu commune à l’époque.” 22 Ibid., 266n14. 23 Hayward, “Le littérature de la modernité et le libéralisme nationaliste au Québec entre 1899 et 1916,” 179. 24 AMM, FOA, pro forma letter from Olivar Asselin, 28 August 1911, used by Asselin in his electoral campaign during the 1911 federal election. 25 Hall, “Conditions for National Homogenizers,” 15. 26 Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class. 27 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 311, 658–61. 28 O’Connell, “The Ideas of Henri Bourassa,” 368–9. 29 “Scottish Nationalism. What a National Party Could Do. By a Young Scot,” Dundee Advertiser, 21 October 1910. 30 Lamonde, “Le libéralisme et le passage dans le XXe siècle,” 277: “C’est l’époque … de la remontée du nationalisme canadien-français, qui vient croiser le fer avec le libéralisme.”

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Notes to pages 224–30

289

31 Asselin, A Quebec View of Canadian Nationalism, 60–1. 32 Cf. Breuilly, Nationalism and the State; Mann, “A Political Theory of Nationalism.” 33 Cf. MacCormick, “The English Constitution, the British State and the Scottish Anomaly,” 142–3. 34 Taylor, Reconciling the Solitudes, 190. 35 Meadwell, “Republics, Nations and Transitions to Modernity,” 21. 36 Bourassa, Great Britain and Canada, 45. 37 Kellas, “Review: The Autonomy of Modern Scotland,” 108. 38 Nairn, Faces of Nationalism, 237n18. 39 Hearn, Claiming Scotland, 21. 40 Hall, “How Homogenous Need We Be?” 169; Hechter, Containing Nationalism. 41 Hall, “Nationalisms,” 17. 42 Hanham, Scottish Nationalism, 121. 43 The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 10, 1 July 1904, 115. 44 Pittock, The Invention of Scotland, 128–9. 45 Scottish Patriot, vol. 2, no. 15, April 1904, 42–5. 46 Scottish Patriot, vol. 2, no. 16, May 1904, 60. 47 Wilson invited Roland Muirhead to be a vice-president of the organization. ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 2/63, John Wilson to Roland Muirhead, 18 May 1904. 48 Prudhomme, La Renaissance du Nationalisme écossais au XXe siècle, 450–1. 49 Hanham, Scottish Nationalism, 122. 50 Ibid., 123–5. 51 Scottish Patriot, vol. 2, no. 34, November 1905, 314. The dispute relates to the 1900 coronation of the king, crowned Edward VII; because no Edward had been monarch since the 1603 Union of Crowns between Scotland and England, the title should properly have been Edward I. 52 The Young Scot, vol. 1, no. 10, 1 July 1904, 115. 53 The Fiery Cross, July 1903, 3. 54 Ibid., October 1907, 7. 55 The Thistle, November 1909, 244–5. 56 Hanham, Scottish Nationalism, 129. 57 Quoted in Nairn, Faces of Nationalism, 195. 58 “Scottish Nationalism. What a National Party Could Do. By A Young Scot,” Dundee Advertiser, 10 October 1910. 59 The Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 9, July 1914, 131. 60 Hanham, Scottish Nationalism, 96. 61 “The Labour Party and Home Rule for Scotland,” The Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 10, August 1914, 151.

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290

Notes to pages 231–5

62 The Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 1, November 1913, 15. 63 Ibid. The cities visited were: St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Albany, and Boston. 64 The Scottish Nation, vol. 1, no. 9, July 1914, 140. 65 “The Scottish Nation Club,” leaflet, n.d., 8. 66 Mitchell, Strategies for Self-Government, 105–7. 67 “Bannockburn Sex Centenary. Celebrations at Stirling. A Large Gathering,” The Scotsman, 29 June 1914, 11. 68 Beaulieu and Hamelin, Les journaux du Québec de 1764 à 1964, 81, 225. 69 Savard, “Jules-Paul Tardivel.” Bourassa was himself influenced by Tardivel. La Verité had been compulsive reading for the young Bourassa. O’Connell, “The Ideas of Henri Bourassa,” 365. 70 LAC, FHB, MG 27 II E1, Microfiche M-722A. 71 Jules-Paul Tardivel, La Verité, 1 April 1904, 5: “Notre nationalisme à nous est le nationalisme canadien-français. La nation que nous voulons voir se fonder … c’est la nation canadienne-française.” 72 Henri Bourassa, Le Nationaliste, 3 April 1904, 2: “Notre nationalisme à nous est le nationalisme canadien, fondé sur la dualité des races … La nation que nous voulons voir se développer, c’est la nation canadienne, composée des Canadiens français et des Canadiens anglais, c’est-à-dire de deux éléments séparés par la langue et la religion … mais unis dans un commun attachement à la patrie commune.” 73 Behiels, “L’Association catholique de la jeunesse canadienne-française,” 28. 74 The ACJC was one of a number of organizations formed under the direction of the Catholic Church during this period. 75 Behiels, “L’Association catholique de la jeunesse canadienne-française,” 29. 76 Ibid., 30–1. 77 Cf. Mitchell, Strategies for Self-Government, 105–7. 78 Wade, French Canadians 1760–1967, 564. 79 Behiels, “L’Association catholique de la jeunesse canadienne-française,” 30. 80 Ibid., 33–5. 81 Olivar Asselin, Le Nationaliste, 8 May 1904. 82 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 555. 83 Thério, Jules Fournier, 143. 84 “Une infamie,” L’Action, 9 November 1912: “Nous nous disions: ces gens-là sont d’une étroitesse à faire frémir; ils sont intolérants, maladroits et antipathiques. La plupart du temps, ils se montrent même franchement imbéciles; mais ils ont à coeur de nobles idées et ils sont sincères; à défaut d’intelligence, ils ont au moins de la conscience et de l’honneur.” 85 Thério, Jules Fournier, 149–51.

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Notes to pages 235–41

291

86 Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 142. 87 Henri Bourassa, “Mes relations avec le ‘Nationaliste,’” Le Nationaliste, 27 March 1904: “La Verité est avant tout un journal religieux. Elle n’atteint qu’un public spécial et nécessairement restraint.” 88 Hayward, “Le littérature de la modernité et le libéralisme nationaliste au Québec,” 173. 89 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 522. 90 Ibid., 546, 555. 91 Ibid., 555. 92 Cline, Recruits to Labour, 10–13. 93 Swartz, The Union of Democratic Control, 85. 94 Knox, “Introduction,” 46. 95 “Socialism as it appears to a Worker,” leaflet published by Edinburgh Centre YSS, n.d., 4. 96 Ibid. 97 Graham, Willie Graham, 47. 98 Bold, McDiarmid, 83. 99 McKibbin, The Evolution of the Labour Party 1910–1924, 31. 100 Hutchison, A Political History of Scotland, 1832–1924, 259. 101 Knox, “Edward Rosslyn Mitchell,” 212. 102 Smith, “Labour Tradition in Glasgow and Liverpool,” 34. 103 Knox, “Edward Rosslyn Mitchell,” 212. 104 Quoted in Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 650, 644. 105 Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 164–6. 106 Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 649. 107 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 651, 657. 108 Ibid., 677; cf. Durocher, “Henri Bourassa, les évêques et la guerre de 1914–1918.” 109 Swartz, The Union of Democratic Control, 95. 110 Asselin’s friend and fellow Nationaliste, Alfred Larocque, had already enlisted as a captain. Pelletier-Baillargeon, Olivar Asselin, 684. 111 Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 168–9, 167. 112 Ibid., 171. 113 Wade, The French Canadians 1760–1967, 681. 114 Brown and Cook, Canada 1896–1921, 262–3. 115 Ibid., 272–3. 116 Linteau et al., Histoire du Québec contemporain, 691–3; cf. Auger, “On the Brink of Civil War.” 117 ML, Muirhead MSS, Box 2/59, draft manuscript entitled, “The Scottish Self-Government Movement,” n.d.

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118 119 120 121

122

123 124 125 126 127 128 129

Notes to pages 241–4

Cf. Finlay, Independent and Free, chapter 1. Dyer, Capable Citizens and Improvident Democrats, 108. Knox, “Rev. James Barr,” 61–5. Prudhomme, La Renaissance du Nationalisme écossais au XXe siècle, 451. On the role of the SNL during this period, see Finlay, Independent and Free, chapter 2. The Scots Independent, December 1951, 8. Tom Gibson was editor of the Scots Independent, the newspaper of the Scots National League and later the NPS/SNP. Brand suggests that Gibson was a member of the YSS. Brand, The National Movement in Scotland, 40. However, I am unable to confirm this. Prudhomme, La Renaissance du Nationalisme écossais au XXe siècle, 424: “une pépinière de nationalistes ou de futurs travaillistes.” NLS, Acc. 3721, Box 2/29, Roland Muirhead to Joseph Bryan, secretary and treasurer of Partick YSS, 10 December 1934. Pelletier-Baillargeon, “Olivar Asselin.” Wade, “Olivar Asselin,” 176: “propagande indigéniste souvent detestable.” Pelletier-Baillargeon, “Olivar Asselin.” Behiels, Prelude to Quebec’s Quiet Revolution. Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular, 286–8.

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Index

Alsace, 154, 155 Anderson, Benedict, 12 Armstrong, John, 12, 14 Asquith, Herbert, 58, 82, 84, 98, 136, 137 Asselin, Olivar, 4, 6, 10, 11, 64–5, 65–6, 66–7, 68, 69, 70–1, 77, 78, 79, 90, 91, 92, 96, 101–3, 113, 116, 151, 153, 154–5, 156, 157, 158, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166–7, 168, 169, 171–2, 173, 174, 176, 177, 182, 183, 184, 188–9, 190, 192, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 207, 208, 211, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 221, 222, 224, 234, 235, 238, 239–40, 243 Association catholique de la jeunesse canadienne française (ACJC), 11, 233–4, 235 Barr, Rev. James, 74, 75, 88, 99, 180, 185, 187, 236, 237, 238, 241, 242 Barth, Frederick, 12 Bédard, J.-E., 166 Bégin, Joseph, 203, 232, 235 Bélanger, Émile, 78, 91

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Bélanger, Réal, 50 Belgium, 149, 154, 155, 172, 173, 211, 239 bilingualism, 154, 161, 163–4, 170, 210, 234, 235 Billig, Michael, 15, binationalism, 11, 71, 150, 151–61, 161–4, 164–8, 175, 178, 210, 225, 243. See also nationalism, Nationalistes Boer War: see British Empire, Nationalistes Borden, Robert, 102, 103, 104, 170, 238, 239, 240 Bouchette, Errol, 112, 113, 202, 208 Bourassa, Henri, 4, 6, 11, 35, 47, 54, 65, 64, 66, 67, 68–70, 71, 77, 78, 79, 88–90, 91, 92–3, 96, 101–105, 113, 115, 116, 117, 118, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155–6, 157, 158, 159, 160, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170–1, 174–5, 176, 177, 182, 184, 189, 190, 192, 194, 195, 198, 199, 201, 202, 207, 208, 210, 211, 212–13, 213–14, 215,

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314

Index

216, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 225, 232, 233, 234, 235, 238, 239, 240, 242, 243 Bourassa, Napoléon, 79 Breuilly, John, 20 British Empire, 3, 7–8, 9, 10, 24, 33–9, 43, 54, 56, 81–118, 119, 120, 149, 151, 155, 156, 177, 178, 186, 187, 213, 218, 220, 224, 240; and economic elites in Scotland and Quebec, 107–8; as a hegemon, 36–9; and imperial defence, 7, 36–8, 82, 91, 97–105, 106, 109, 151, 158, 168, 224, 234, see also Naval Bill; and industrialization in Scotland and Quebec, 105–14; and a liberal conception of empire, 115–18; and the South African War (Boer War), 3, 7, 9, 10, 36, 60, 81, 82–93, 125, 149, 151, 162, 164, 200, 210, 224, 228, 232, 236, 238, 239; and tariff reform, 7, 37, 93–7, 109, 162, 224, 237. See also empire, Nationalistes, Young Scots’ Society British North America Act (1867), 43, 44, 47, 153–4, 169, 225 Brown, A.L., 62 Brown, Robert: and Ramsay Cook, 47 Bruce, Steve, 13 Bruchési, Archbishop Paul, 50, 163, 199, 234 Bryant, Christopher, 27, 28 Bryce, James, 136, 219 Cahan, C.H., 159 Caisses populaires, 108, 112–13, 207–8

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Campbell, A.C., 75 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 61–2, 84–5, 87, 116, 136 Canadian Confederation, origin and expansion, 35–6, 44–6, 104, 150, 153–4, 165, 172, 175, 176 Cartier, George-Étienne, 44, 49, 50, 153, 194 Catholic Church (Quebec), 8, 11, 14, 33, 34, 35, 43, 48, 50, 51, 53–5, 56, 68, 79, 80, 131, 163, 171, 173, 179, 182–4, 185, 187–9, 190, 191, 199, 202–3, 204, 205–6, 207–8, 210–11, 215, 216, 221, 226, 232, 233–4, 235, 238–9. See also civil society Chamberlain, Joseph, 88, 93, 94, 96, 120, 162, 237 Chapple, W.A., 142 Chaput, Omer, 78, 91, 92 Chase-Casgrain, Thomas, 166 Chauvin, Léon Adolphe, 65 Church of Scotland, 8, 48, 53, 55, 56, 180, 181, 184, 185, 186, 188, 215; and “the Disruption,” 53, 55–6. See also civil society Churchill, Winston, 61, 104, 137, 142 civil society, 7, 8, 9, 19, 23, 26–8, 29, 33, 34, 41, 47–56, 57, 123, 145, 148, 179–217, 224, 226, 227; and business and commerce, 8, 204–8; definition, 26–8, 179, 217; and education and schooling, 8, 185–92; and immigrant minorities, 8, 28, 213–14, 215, 244; and labour, 8, 208–11, 214–15; and law and lawyers, 8, 192–5, 205; and local government, 8, 195–200; and the press,

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Index

8, 200–4; and religion, 8, 179–84, and women, 8, 211–13, 215. See also Catholic Church (Quebec), Church of Scotland, liberalism, middle class, United Free Church Cobden, Richard, 50, 66, 86, 95, 96, 116 Cohen, Anthony, 15–16 Colley, Linda, 21, 34 colonization (Quebec), 103, 166–7 conscription: see First World War Conservative and Unionist Party (UK, Scotland), 62, 83, 84, 85, 93, 94, 97, 122, 128, 200, 229 Conservative Party (Canada, Quebec), 5, 49–50, 51, 64, 65, 70, 71, 91, 102–4, 159, 160, 166, 168, 176, 206, 242 consociation: consociationalism, 8, 23, 26, 31, 44, 46, 47, 150, 154, 156–61, 175–8, 225 Convention of Scottish Burghs, 40, 124, 196 Courtney, Leonard, 87, 117 Cowan, W.H., 137, 139, 140 Craig, Sterling, 61, 75 Crosthwaite, John M., 75, 142, 228, 231 Crosthwaite, Mrs J.M., 73, 241 Cullen, Alexander, 86 Dahrendorf, Ralf, 4 Davidoff, Leonore and Catherine Hall, 52 democracy: competing conceptions of, 10, 21, 22–3, 26, 30, 44, 125, 157, 180, 223, 238. See also franchise extension, liberalism des Ormeaux, Dollard, 13 Deutsch, Karl, 18

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315

Dewar, Arthur, 62 Dion, Stéphane, 22 Disruption, the: see Church of Scotland Doyle, Michael, 23, 36, 37 Ducharme, G.N., 67, 207 Dutil, Patrice, 196–7, 198 Dyer, Michael, 138 Edinburgh Evening News, 85, 181, 230 Elibank, Master of, 63 empire: definition, 23–4. See also British Empire, liberalism Erskine, Hon. Stuart, 227, 229 Federal Home Rule, 41, 120, 126, 129, 139–41, 148, 228 federalism, 8, 23, 24–6, 31, 47, 56, 119–31, 146, 149–50, 157, 224, 224 federation, 8, 24–6, 44–6, 47, 56, 93, 96, 119, 120, 148–9, 154, 160, 175, 178, 225, 243 Ferguson, Adam, 26–7 Ferguson, Niall, 36 Ferguson, Ronald Munro, 137, 139, 142 Fiery Cross, The, 6, 88, 227, 228, 229 Finlay, Richard J., 63 First World War, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 36, 93, 113, 128, 146, 169, 172, 176, 184, 195, 207, 209, 243 Forward, 209, 211, 237 Fournier, Jules, 4, 6, 10, 11, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 77, 78, 79–80, 101, 112, 113, 153, 157, 163, 165, 167, 168, 171, 173, 176, 182–3, 188, 190, 191, 192,

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316

Index

197–8, 201, 202, 208, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 221–2, 234–5, 243 France, 15, 21, 22, 34, 35, 37, 38, 54, 117, 152, 172, 173, 184, 213, 239, 240, 241 franchise extension, 49, 85, 200, 222–3. See also democracy, liberalism free speech, 5, 87, 224 free trade, 5, 10, 58, 72, 74, 93, 94–5, 99, 109, 129, 148, 205, 208, 209, 214, 224, 238 French language, 12, 43, 48, 65, 79, 152–3, 155, 157, 158, 160, 162– 3, 168–71, 174, 177, 191, 201, 204, 222, 233, 235, 244 Garceau, Napoléon, 77, 78, 92, 166 Geertz, Clifford, 3 Gellner, Ernest, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17–18, 19, 20, 28, 225 Gilpin, Robert, 36 Gladstone, William Ewart, 10, 59, 60, 84, 86, 95, 116, 132, 134, 136, 181, 219, 220, 229 Glasgow Herald, The, 85, 134, 200 Gouin, Lomer Sir, 51, 64–5, 165, 166, 168, 189, 190, 191, 263n62 Gray, John, 222 Grey, Sir Edward, 82 Groulx, Lionel, 162, 188, 233, 243 Gulland, John, 6, 60, 74, 75, 76, 181, 186, 193, 229 Gulland, J.W., 60, 62, 74, 75, 76, 124, 137, 139, 180, 185, 186, 196, 204, 205 Haldane, Richard, 84, 117, 136 Hall, John A., 12, 20, 23, 29, 37

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Hamilton, Archibald, 74 Hanham, Henry J., 63, 128, 227, 229, 230 Harvie, Christopher, 146, 180 Hay, Robert, 76, 111, 143, 241 Heap, Ruby, 191 Hearn, Jonathan, 226 Hechter, Michael, 19–20 Heintzman, Ralph, 35, 150 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 17 Héroux, Omer, 4, 6, 10, 11, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 77, 78, 79, 80, 91, 92, 113, 182, 188, 189, 192, 201, 202, 208, 213, 216, 220, 221, 222, 234, 235, 242 Hirschman, Albert, 23 Hobsbawm, Eric and Terence Ranger, 13, 247n28 Hobson, J.A., 37 Hobson, John, 38 Hogge, James Myles, 59, 60, 61, 74, 75, 76, 87, 88, 111, 124, 137, 138–9, 140, 142, 143, 146, 147, 180, 181, 186, 196, 230, 231, 241 House of Lords, 98–9, 122, 126, 127, 146, 209, 238 Hroch, Miroslav, 17, 18–19 Hughes, Everett, 215 Hughes, Sam, 91, 239–40 Humes, Walter, 185 Hutchinson, John, 15 Hutchison, Ian, 94, 211 immigration and immigrant minorities, 8, 9, 28, 46, 54, 108, 111, 151–2, 161, 162, 167, 168, 169, 172–5, 177, 179, 184, 208, 213–16, 226, 244. See also civil society

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Index

Independent Labour Party (ILP), 99, 209, 236–7, 238, 241, 242 International Scots Home Rule League (ISHRL), 125, 147, 230–1, 232 Ireland, 4, 23, 54, 60, 111, 116, 117, 120, 121, 130, 139, 140, 141, 145, 147, 154, 160, 180, 213, 223, 229, 252n8 Irish Home Rule, 84, 120–1, 130, 139–41, 143, 156, 180, 200, 213 Irish Parliamentary Party, 61, 142, 160, 273n99 Johnston, Thomas, 211, 237 Kellas, James, 42, 226 Kennedy, Paul, 36 Ker, A. Rutherford, 60–1 Khilnani, Sunil, 28 Kidd, Colin, 14 Kilmarnock Burghs parliamentary by-election, 132–6, 146 King, Preston, 24 Kinloch, John L, 6, 59–60, 99, 211, 236, 237, 241, 242 Kruger, Paul, 83 Kumar, Krishan, 27 Kymlicka, Will, 29–30, 31 Labelle, J.-R., 166 Labour Party (UK), 5, 42, 76, 133, 134, 137, 142, 185, 209, 228, 236–8, 241, 242. See also civil society, Independent Labour Party La Croix, 6, 232, 235 L’Action, 6, 11, 66, 69, 171, 197, 202, 204, 239 L’Action Sociale, 6, 68, 78, 202, 214, 234, 235, 239

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317

land reform, 6, 14, 71–2, 84, 98–9, 125, 127–8, 129, 167, 238 Langois, Godfroy, 65, 189, 192, 196, 203 La Patrie, 78, 88, 91, 201, 204 La Presse, 69, 78, 91, 201, 202, 204 Larocque, Alfred, 78, 103 Laughland, William, 76, 134, 142, 143, 211 Laurendeau, André, 221 Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 45, 47, 50, 64, 65, 70, 78, 79, 88, 89, 92, 95, 100, 102–3, 109, 150, 158, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 176, 182, 188, 197, 201, 220, 221, 234, 239, 240 L’Avenir du Nord, 65 Lavergne, Armand, 4, 6, 10, 11, 64, 66, 70, 77, 78, 79, 89, 92, 102, 103, 104, 112, 157, 160, 162, 163, 164, 166, 168, 176, 182, 188, 189, 192, 194, 195, 196, 208, 210, 213, 216, 222, 235, 238, 240, 242 La Vérité, 6, 65, 78, 202, 232, 235 Le Bulletin du parler français, 65 Le Canada, 67, 78, 168, 201, 202, 204 Le Combat, 67 Le Devoir, 6, 11, 66, 68–70, 71, 80, 102, 104, 113, 171, 197, 198, 199, 202–3, 204, 207, 208, 212, 242 Leishman, James, 74, 94, 124, 196 Le Journal, 78, 91, 174, 201, 204 Lemieux, Rodolphe, 65, 173 Le Nationaliste, 4, 6, 11, 65, 66–8, 69, 163, 164, 190, 202, 203, 204, 232, 234, 235 Lepage, Edmond, 67

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318

Index

Les Débats, 6, 66, 67, 69, 78, 90, 202, 203 Le Soleil, 67, 201, 202 Levitt, Joseph, 4, 113, 155, 165, 182, 221 liberalism, 9–11, 18, 22–3, 47– 51, 56, 59, 62, 63, 64, 82, 85, 116, 117, 157, 179, 206, 214, 218, 219, 219–27, 229; and Catholicism, 49–50, 80, 179, 182–4, 191, 204, 206, 215, 216– 17, 221, 226; “classical liberalism,” 4–5, 95, 96, 198, 205; and commerce, 206, 208; defined, 29; and empire, 24, 115–16, 224; and lawyers, 193, 194–5; and Liberal parties, 48–50; and nationalism, 7, 8, 29–32, 60, 86, 129, 191, 193, 195, 218, 219–44; and Presbyterianism, 48–9, 51, 80, 180–1, 208, 215–16, 226; and the press, 201–2; “social liberalism” (“new liberalism”), 4–5, 76, 110, 205, 222–3; and trade unionism, 211, 214, 238. See also civil society, democracy, franchise extension, liberal nationalism, middle class Liberal League, 62, 95 liberal nationalism, 3, 9, 11, 29–32, 177–8, 193, 217, 222, 226–7, 231–2, 235, 244. See also liberalism, nationalism Liberal Party (Canada, Quebec), 5, 45, 46, 49–51, 64–5, 66, 67, 78, 79, 91, 100, 102–3, 104, 109, 117, 159, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 176, 188, 189, 190, 191, 196, 201, 202, 206, 210, 220, 234, 240, 243

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Liberal Party (UK, Scotland), 5, 6, 41–2, 48–9, 51, 57–8, 59–60, 61–3, 74, 75, 80, 82, 83–8, 93–4, 95, 97–9, 116, 125–6, 128, 130, 131–45, 146, 180, 181, 186, 200, 205, 209, 211, 213, 219, 220, 222, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 236–8, 241, 242 Liberal Unionist Party (UK): see Conservative and Unionist Party Lieven, Dominic, 24 Ligue nationaliste canadienne, 4, 7, 9, 10, 57, 63–71, 76–7, 78, 80, 92, 151, 162, 164, 165, 169, 197, 223, 232, 233, 234, 235; as an educational society, 65–70; and its electioneering role, 71; formation, 88–93; independent organization, 64–5; as a national society, 70–1; and its program, 64, 70, 92, 151, 165–6, 169. See also Nationalistes Lijphart, Arend, 26 Linteau, Paul-André, 107, 108, 117, 168, 189, 192, 206 Livingstone, William S., 25–6 Lloyd George, David, 61, 63, 87, 89, 98, 167 Lochhead, Thomas, 135, 142, 241 Lozeau, Albert, 69 MacDonald, J.A. Murray, 139 MacDonald, John A., 44, 45, 46, 153, MacDonald, J. Ramsay, 236 MacIver, Kenneth, 76, 145, 241 MacLaren, Alexander, 75, 133, 134, 135, 141, 143, 144, 148, 149, 196, 204, 242 MacLeod, Ian, 148, 180 MacPherson, George, 76

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Index

MacPherson, Hector, 85, 180, 181, 230 Macpherson, Ian, 62, 137, 140 Manitoba schools question: see schooling questions Mann, Michael, 13, 14, 15, 18, 20, 37–8 Martin, Médéric, 198, 199, 210 Matson, James, 74, 75, 86, 204 Mazzini, Guiseppe, 219, 220 McCrone, David, 20, 107 Meadwell, Hudson, 23 Mehta, Uday, 9 Merriman, Hon. John X., 87, 89 middle class, 19, 47, 51–3, 72, 75, 138, 187, 194, 195, 196, 197, 204, 211–12, 223, 238. See also civil society, liberalism Mill, John Stuart, 24, 30, 121 Miller, Carman, 89 Miller, David, 30 Minto, Lord, 48, 91, 107–8 Mitchell, D. MacGregor, 74, 75, 76, 180 Monk, Fredrick, 71, 102, 104, 160, 166 Montigny, Louvigny de, 78 Montpetit, Édouard, 69, 202 Morley, John, 89, 117, 219, 229 Morton, Graeme, 16, 40, 52, 195, 196 Muirhead, Roland Eugene, 5, 6, 74, 74–5, 76, 99, 112, 126, 129, 134, 135, 140, 143, 144, 145, 204, 209, 211, 212, 236, 237, 238, 241, 242 Munro, Robert (later Lord Alness), 63, 137, 145 Murray, Walter, 127, 129, 143, 201, 231, 236, 242

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319

Naimer, Lewis, 11 Nairn, Tom, 12, 16, 19, 21, 27, 34, 39, 125, 226 Napier, Mrs, 73, 286n143 Napier, Theodore, 88, 141, 227, 228, 229 nation, definition, 12–14 nationalism, 7, 14–17, 29; definition, 16; political causes, 20–3; socioeconomic preconditions, 17–20. See also binationalism, liberalism, liberal nationalism, Ligue nationaliste canadienne, Nationalistes, Young Scots, Young Scots’ Society National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights (NAVSR, Scottish Rights Association), 40, 41, 125 Nationalistes, 5, 7, 8, 11, 14, 17, 22, 24, 29, 31, 32, 35, 37, 39, 47, 53, 56, 57, 65, 66, 68, 70, 76–80, 80, 81, 82, 91, 96, 119, 150, 152, 179, 185, 208, 214–15, 216–17, 232, 234, 235, 238, 242; age, 77; and binationalism, 151–64, 175–8; and the British Empire, 115–17, 118; and business and commerce, 205–8; and economic reform, 112–13, 114; education, 77, 187–92; and immigration, 151, 172–4; and the labour movement, 209–11; and liberalism, 218–27, 243; and local government, 196–200; and the Naval Bill, 100–5; and 1911 federal election, 71; occupation and social class, 78–9, 79–80, 194–5; and the press, 200, 201–4; and provincial politics, 164–8;

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and reciprocity with the United States, 102, 109; religion, 79, 182–4; and schooling questions, 168–72; and social reform, 113– 14, 182; and the South African War (Boer War), 88–93; and tariff reform, 95–6. See also Ligue nationaliste canadienne Naval Bill, 100, 101, 102, 104, 109, 151, 158, 168, 234. See also British Empire Nevers, Edmond de, 69 Normand, Sylvio, 195 O’Brien, Patrick, 37 O’Connell, Martin P., 151 Offer, Avner, 99, 167 O’Leary, Brendan, 16 Olson, Mancur, 37 pacifism, 181, 224, 236 Papineau, Louis-Joseph, 79, 214, 221, 228n20 Parnell, Charles, 61 Parrott, Edward, 74 Parti Québécois (PQ), 244 Paterson, Lindsay, 39, 40, 55, 56, 148, 187 Paton, David, 75 Patriote rebellions (1837–38), 22, 43, 49, 53, 55, 79 Peacock, John, 73, 75, 76, 181 Pelland, Albert, 78, 91 Pelletier, Georges, 68, 234 Pelletier, Gérard, 243 Pelletier-Baillargeon, Hélène, 65, 162, 221 Pentland, Lord, 122, 127 Ponsonby, Arthur, 137, 138, 139, 140

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Pirie, D.V., 137, 139, 140, 141, 142 Price, C.E., 62, 133 Prévost, Jean, 164, 166 Prudhomme, Georges, 72, 242 Quebec Act (1774), 43, 48, 194 Rainville, Joseph, 102, 166 Rainy, Roland, 141 Redmond, John, 61 Regulation 17 (Ontario): see Nationalistes, schooling questions Reynold’s Newspaper, 59, 90 Riel rebellions, 46, 47 Riker, William H., 24–5, 26 Robertson, John, 33 Robertson, R.J., 75, 124, 126, 127, 147, 193, 196, 213, 230, 231 Rosebery, Lord, 62, 84, 136 Rouges, 49, 103, 182, 184, 203, 221 Rumilly, Robert, 221 Ryan, Claude, 243 Ryan, William F., 205 Saunders, J.S., 75, 193 schooling questions, 8, 151, 161, 162, 168, 169, 177, 234; in Alberta and Saskatchewan (formerly Northwest Territories), 46, 158, 162, 163, 164, 175, 177; in Keewatin, 170, 175, 177; in Manitoba, 45–7, 50, 153, 162, 169, 170, 175–6, 188, 221; in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, 176; in Ontario (Regulation 17), 155–6, 169, 170–2, 175, 183, 214, 221–2, 238, 240. See also Nationalistes

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Index

Scotch Education Department, 40–1, 186, 187, 196 Scotsman, The, 85, 87, 200 Scott, Alexander MacCallum, 6, 62, 137, 139, 140, 143, 181, 212 Scottish Grand Committee, 41 Scottish Home Rule, 8, 10, 14, 41, 42, 49, 62, 72, 76, 87, 95, 112, 115, 116, 119, 124, 125–8, 128– 46, 146–9, 196, 204, 209, 212, 220, 228–9, 230–1, 238, 241–2, 243 Scottish Home Rule Association (SHRA), 41, 228, 241, 242 Scottish Home Rule bills, 41, 62, 139, 140, 145, 242 Scottish Home Rule Council (SHRC), 125, 131, 142–6 Scottish Liberal Association (SLA), 6, 42, 61, 95, 131, 138, 143, 145, 237 Scottish Nation, The, 6, 146, 231 Scottish National Committee (SNC), 141–2 Scottish Nationalist, The, 6, 227, 228 Scottish National Party (SNP), 242, 243 Scottish Office, 40–1, 123, 196 Scottish Patriot, The, 6, 34, 59, 213, 227, 228, 229 Scottish Patriotic Association (SPA), 228, 231 Scottish Rights Association: see National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights Scottish Women’s Liberal Association (SWLA), 143, 145, 211 Secretary for Scotland (later Secretary of State for Scotland), 40–1, 122–3, 144, 145

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321

Shanks, Robert, 236, 241 Shaw, Thomas (Lord Tweedmouth), 62, 99 Sifton, Clifford, 65 Smith, Anthony, 12–13, 14 Smith, Donald, (Lord Strathcona), 108, 109 Smith, Goldwin, 65, 89, 159, 221 Smith, Joan, 209, 238 Société du parler français, 171 Société Saint-Jean Baptiste (SSJB), 113, 154, 171, 183, 197, 212 South Africa War: see British Empire, Nationalistes Steel, James, 61, 73, 75, 204 Sunday Bill, 163, 164, 210, 213, 214 Suny, Ronald Grigor, 23 Switzerland, 154–5, 178 Tamir, Yael, 30, 31, 32 Tardivel, Jules-Paul, 65, 66, 69, 78, 152, 203, 232, 233, 235 tariff reform: see British Empire Taylor, Charles, 4, 16–17, 30, 31 temperance, 59, 71, 76, 84, 125, 181, 182, 237 Thistle, The, 6, 227, 229 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 27–8, 194, 195 Treaty of Paris (1763), 34, 48 Treaty of Union (1707), 19, 24, 33–4, 39, 40, 42, 48, 122, 125, 127, 225 Trois-Rivières, 67, 80 Turgeon, Adélard, 164, 166 ultramontanes: ultramontanism, 49–50, 54, 65, 66, 68, 78, 195, 203, 221, 232, 235

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Union Act (Canada) (1840), 25, 43, 44, 47, 150, 154 Union for the Democratic Control of Foreign Policy (UDC), 236, 239 United Free Church (UFC), 75–6, 80, 180–1, 184, 205. See also civil society United States of America (USA), 3, 5, 16, 25, 36, 37, 38, 70, 75, 93, 96, 102, 106, 107, 109, 110, 115, 117, 120, 121, 149, 152, 153, 154, 156, 168, 172, 174, 195, 215, 224, 231, 232 Ure, Alexander, 63, 99 Waddie, Charles, 141, 227, 228 Wade, Mason, 68, 69, 95 Wales, 21, 60, 61, 110, 116, 119, 120, 121, 140, 147, 154, 223 Wanliss, Thomas Drumond, 141, 227, 229 Wason, J. Cathcart, 139 Watt, Harry Anderson, 123, 132, 142 Weber, Max, 22 Weekly Sun (Toronto), 65, 89 White, James Dundas, 137, 138 Wilson, Claude, 75, 204, Wilson, John, 213, 227, 228, 229 Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), 211–12 Wood, Thomas MacKinnon, 63, 122, 123, 137, 145, 146 Young Scot, The, 6, 59, 94, 180, 200, 228 Young Scot Club, 72 Young Scot Institute, 72

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Young Scots, 5, 7, 8, 11, 14, 17, 22, 24, 29, 31, 32, 37, 39, 42, 49, 71–6, 80, 81, 90, 179, 182; 214, 239, 241; age, 74; education, 74–5, 185–7, 191–2; geographic distribution, 71–3, 76; and labour, 209, 237–8, 242; and local government, 196, 199; occupation and social class, 75, 193, 195, 204–5; and the press, 200–1, 203; religion, 53, 56, 75–6, 180–1, 184. See also Young Scots’ Society Young Scots’ Society (YSS), 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 31, 57–63, 66, 71–6, 80, 143, 144, 229, 232, 235; and armament, 99–100; branches, 71–3, 128; and the British Empire, 115–16, 117–18; and education reform, 192; as an educational society, 58–60; and its electioneering role, 61–3, 71; formation, 83–8; and free trade campaign, 94–5, 109, 205, 208; and Home Rule campaigns, 119–49; as an independent organization, 57–8, 59–60, 64; and Irish home rule, 130, 143, 213; and land reform, 98–9, 167; and liberalism, 216–17, 119–220, 222–7, 227– 32, 243, and Liberal Party parliamentary candidates, 131–6; as national society, 60–1; and Scottish Liberal MPs, 137–41; and the SHRC, 142–6; and social reform, 110–12, 113, 114, 125, 126; Western Council, 72, 142, 241; women members, 72–3, 211–12, 215. See also Young Scots Young Wales, 61

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