29
Langevin, from whom I should have hoped for more independence.
It is natural that those who enjoy the present favor of the Hierarchy should be their defenders and apologists,—and it is also natural that those who have suffered through their interference should appear to be my allies at this moment, and it has not therefore surprised me, that in my recent pamphlet, I should be understood as having changed my political status. My language has not, however, been weighed with the same care with which it was used by me. I have said: "I find but one line of duty open to me, and that is to give my hearty support and sympathy to the Liberal Catholics of Quebec." The whole tone of my pamphlet shewed, I think clearly, that I had no concern with the party politics of the day, which would have been the case had I transposed the phrase and said Catholic Liberals. Unfortunately, I am too well aware that neither Rouge nor Blue are free from clerical subserviency. What I asked for in my letter to Mr. Robertson of 31st May, and what I seek to obtain now, is "a public and explicit declaration that they reject and refuse to acknowledge the authority claimed for his Church by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Montreal in all matters pertaining to public law and the government of the country."
Such a declaration as the above can only have force coming from the party in power. It is clearly only to be obtained by a union of the Protestants, not merely with the Liberal Catholics of Quebec, be they politically Conservative or so-called Rouge, but with the Catholics in other parts of the Dominion.
According to my apprehension of the circumstances, I think the country is threatened with very grave evils, and I desire to avert the danger—not through the special action of any purely political party,
