THE FRENCH PROBLEM IN CANADA. 783 



During the one hundred and fifty years that France held posses- 

 sion of Canada, the population increased but slowly. In 1TG3, four 

 years after the conquest, it was estimated at about 65,000. Under 

 British rule, in one hundred and twenty-five years it has grown to 

 about 1,500,000 in Canada, and it is estimated that there are nearly 

 half a million of the race in the United States. 



The increase of population in the Province of Quebec has, however, 

 been attended with some disadvantage as well as profit to the Church. 

 The system of subdividing and over-cropping farms has impoverished 

 the soil and led to much poverty in the older communities. Advent- 

 urous colonists as the early French were, their descendants manifest 

 little inclination to establish settlements in the wilderness. They pre- 

 fer, when crowded out of their old homes on the banks of the St. 

 Lawrence, to emigrate to the New England States, where they can 

 obtain in the manufacturing establishments employment better suited 

 to their taste and social instinct, and larger remuneration than can be 

 had in their own country. This exodus became so extensive during a 

 period of depression some seven years ago that it excited alarm in 

 the minds of the ecclesiastical and political leaders of the province. 

 The Quebec Legislature, which is practically controlled by the clergy, 

 and the Dominion Parliament, in which they hold the balance of 

 power, voted large sums to repatriate the self-exiled population, but 

 their efforts were attended with anything but gratifying results. 



About that time the Province of Manitoba, which had been partly 

 colonized by the French prior to the purchase of the Hudson Bay 

 Territories by the Dominion, was thrown open to settlement by the 

 establishment of railway communication with the Red River Valley. 

 A determined effort was made by the French-Canadian leaders to 

 convert this land of promise into another Quebec, in which the French 

 language, French laws and customs, and the Roman Catholic religion, 

 should prevail. With that end in view, through the influence of Sir 

 George Cartier, Manitoba was originally made a small province, in 

 which the French half-breeds had a large majority. To wean them 

 from their nomadic habits, and to give them an influence altogether 

 disproportionate to their numbers and intelligence, they and their 

 children were granted extensive tracts of land in the Red River Val- 

 ley, and large inducements were held out to the French Canadians in 

 the United States to locate lands and settle in the neighborhood of 

 their Metis kindred. Some were persuaded to repatriate themselves 

 and assist in carrying out the designs of their leaders, but the vast 

 majority preferred to remain in the manufacturing towns of New 

 England. 



From Ontario a steady stream of settlers flowed into Manitoba, 

 and, in a very short time, the hopes of Quebec were blighted. The 

 French element was swamped by the flood from Ontario. The con- 

 trol of the province passed into the hands of the Ontarians, the bounda- 



