Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 17.djvu/165

This page needs to be proofread.

OAKABA


149


OAKADA


204^7 men, including 2,456 officers and 45,630 men who were killed in action or died of wounds; 220 officers and 5,185 men who died of diseases; 7,130 officers and 148,669 men wounded and 183 officers and 4,913 men presumed dead and missing. In addition there were 2,221 deaths in Canada and the prisoners of war numbered 3,575, of whom 2,508 were repatriated, escaped, or died while prisoners.

When the war broke out in August, 1914, Canada had a permanent force of only 3,000 men and an active militia of only 60,000. When hostilities ceased Canada had enlisted 595,441 men and had equipped and sent overseas 418,052 troops. The total value of war orders placed in Canada by the imperial government was about $1,200,000,000, and of this amount half was lent by the Dominion of Canada to the British Government. Up to Novem- ber, 1918, the total outlay for the war was approxi- mately $1,068,607,000. For the Red Cross and other war charities was raised the sum of $98,714,933. The ship-building contracts aggregated $70,000,000, and the war loans totaled $2,636,000,000, besides the war Savings stamp issue of $50,000,000. In 1915 mtmitions to the value of $57,213,688 were exported from Canada; in 1916, $296,505,257; in 1917, $388,- 213,553; in 1918, $260,711,751.

To facilitate the return of the soldier to civil life a Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment Department was created on 24 May, 1918; to assist him in set- tling on the land and to increase agricultural pro- duction, the Soldier Settlement Act was passea in February, 1918. Up to 1920 there were 14,072 settlers on purchased lands, with loans of $69,- 259,608, 1,964 on encumbered lands with loans of $4,742,778, and 3,735 settlers on Dominion lands with loans of $6,369,364. By order of Council all Dominion lands within a radius of fifteen miles of any railway were reserved for returned soldiers. The total area already occupied by soldier settlers under the Act is 4,854,799 acres. Canada's pension bill fbr the year, from 1 September, 1920, to 31 August, 1921, amounted to $^,000,000, there being approximately 85,000 disability and dependent pen- sions and gratuities paid, and 177,000 persons bene- fited. A special preference in respect to vacancies in the service of the Dominion Government was extended to returned soldiers in February, 1918.

Ecclesiastical History.— In 1910 the Interna- tional Eucharistic Congress was held in Montreal, attended by the Papal Legate, Cardinal Vannutelli, all the bishops of Canada and the United States and many from Europe, about *4,000 priests and more than 500,000 visitors. Two years later the Congris de la Langue Frangaise en AmSrique was convened in the same city, and a permanent com- mittee formed to safeguard the use of French in


the schools. On 25 May, 1914, Mgr. Louis-Nazaire Begin, Archbishop of Quebec, was raised to the cardinalate by Pope Pius X with the title of Sts. Vitale, Gervasius and Protasius. The following year the National Congress of Priests Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament was held at Montreal, in which twenty-four bishops and himdreds of priests participated.

In October, 1916, the Bishops of Canada received a letter from the pope regretting the division amongst Canadian Catholics concerning the use of French in schools and parishes of provinces in which the majority is English, and affirming the right of the French to insist on their rights in this respect. In the same year a monument commemorating the third centenary of the establishment of the Faith in Canada was erected on the site of the convent and Church of the Recollets, the first missionaries to Canada.

In January, 1917, the twelve bishops of the prov- ince of Ontario, French and English, signed an im- portant document begging the majority in the province to consider m a ^mpathetic way the aspirations and demands of their French fellow- citizens with regard to the establishing and func- tioning of bilingual schools, permitting them to obtain a suitable knowledge of French with a per- fect knowledge of English. By disregarding the French minonty, politicians threatened to undo the work of union accomplished in the Catholic Con- federation of Canada. Since 1913 the school laws for the province of Ontario permitted the inspector of Catholic bilin^^l schools to be a Protestant and made such restnctions in the teaching of French that the situation became intolerable. A second papal letter recognized the right of the French in the province to demand the use of their mother- tonpue in primary education, the faculty of desig- nating by elected commissioners the schools which should be under bilingual regime, 'and normal schools for the formation of bilingual teachers, and permitted an appeal to the civil authorities with the approbation of the bishop.

During the course of the year 1919 the Dominion entertained three distinguished visitors in the per- sons of General Pau, Cardinal Mercier, and the Prince of Wales, and celebrated the centenary of the birth of Georges-Etienne Cartier. The first Semaine Sociule was held in Canada 21-25 June 1920. In 1918 Mgr. Petrus di Maria, formerly bishop of Catanzaro in Calabria, was appointed titular Archbishop of Iconium and Delegate Apos- tolic to Canada and Newfoundland to succeed Mgr. Stagni. The Dominion is divided ecclesiasticaUy into eleven provinces. For statistics see following table and separate articles on listed dioceses:


ECCLESIASTICAL STATISTICS


Vicariates Apostolic Archdioceses, Dioceses,


pTic. Ap

Quebec •{Bishopric

[Archbishopric

Three Rivers

Rimouski

Chicoutimi

Nicolet

Gulf of St. Lawrence, Vic. Ap,


^1

Oh


16571

1674

1844

1852

1867

1878

1885

1906


Catholie Population


,j



541


II 103


404,000


108,067


131


24


145.085


164


11


94,475


141


14


90,304


164


• • •


9,650


• • •


15


20

2 5 8 3 1


29

5

10

7

8


234

56 98 63 68 11


I

IS

6i


260

80 135 68 70 19


0-:


190

17 26 12 38 1



37

11 3 3 6


6

1 2 1 2