the organization and maintenance of distinctly separate
schools in Manitoba. The Catholic authorities accepted the bill as in
full compliance with their demands, and bent all their energies to
secure its adoption. A _mandement_ was issued by all the bishops
urging electors to support only candidates who would pledge themselves
to restore separate schools. And in January Mr Laurier received a
letter written by Father Lacombe in the name of the bishops and
published in the newspapers throughout Canada. This letter besought
the Liberal leader to support the bill, and warned him that {164} 'if,
which may God not grant, you do not believe it to be your duty to
accede to our just demands, and if the government which is anxious to
give us the promised law is beaten and overthrown while persisting in
its policy to the end, I inform you with regret that the episcopacy,
like one man, united to the clergy, will rise to support those who may
have fallen to defend us.'

Mr Laurier met the challenge squarely. In one of his strongest
speeches he reviewed the whole tangled issue. He admitted the legal
power of Canada to pass and enforce the bill, but denied that the
judgment of the Privy Council made such action automatically necessary.
It was still the Government's duty to investigate and seek a
compromise, not to force through a bill framed in darkness and
obstinacy. The minority itself would be more effectually and more
permanently benefited by amendments made voluntarily by the province as
the result of reasonable compromise. Then he turned to the threats of
ecclesiastical hostility:

Not many weeks ago I was told from high quarters in the Church to which
I belong, that unless I supported the School Bill which was then being
prepared by the government, and which we have now before us, {165} I
would incur the hostility of a great and powerful body. Sir, this is
too grave a phase of this question for me to pass it by in silence. I
have only this to say, that even though I have threats held over me,
coming, as I am told, from high dignitaries in the Church to which I
belong, no word of bitterness shall ever pass my lips as against that
Church. I respect it and I love it. Sir, I am not of that school
which has been long dominant in France and other countries of
Continental Europe, which refuses ecclesiastics the privilege of having
a voice in public affairs. No, I am a Liberal of the English school,
which has all alon