Article One: French and English Relations

In the first article in our six part series on early twentieth century Canada, we’ll take a look at how the Second Boer War and the Manitoba Schools exposed some of the most fundamental differences in political opinion between the French and the English, the social subjugation of the French to the more popular English ideals and how Wilfrid Laurier’s decisions to with regards to that paradigm were significant.

           
Tensions between the British Empire and the two Dutch-speaking Boer colonies, the Orange Free State and the South African Republic, had existed since before even the First Boer war. It was, however, inarguably the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand area and the immigration of foreign mine workers (dubbed uitlanders) that began a sequence of events leading to that inevitable conflict. The influx of the uitlander population in the Transvaal (South African Republic) area caused previous tensions between the Dutch and the British from Cape Colony to resurface. They desired political power beyond the limited extent of the Second Volksraad (similar to the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada while it was under the control of the Family Compact), so the British Colonial Secretary demanded full voting rights for the British in the Transvaal. The government of the Republic issued an ultimatum for the British to withdraw their soldiers from the area in response to this demand, to which the British refused, resulting in the joint declaration of war between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State against the British. As Hermann Giliomee Bernard Mbenga, renowned South African scholars, described: “[The] South African War remains the most destructive armed conflict in South Africa’s history.” Here’s a four part documentary explaining some of the key themes and main events of the war.   

A map showing the geographical location of the two independent republics.

     

While certainly an interesting chapter in the annals of British imperialism, it’s not quite that relevant to Canada, which was the dilemma Laurier was faced with when the British requested soldiers to help fight in the war. While the majority of English speaking Canadians wanted the government to involve the military in the Boer War because they saw Canada as part of the British Empire, the French Canadians wanted the government to refuse the British request. They did not want to be part of a war that did not involve them; they did not think that Canada should aid in an what they believed  to be an unjust war based on British imperialist rhetoric.

 
Laurier decided to compromise on the matter. He sent only a battalion of volunteers to help the British, balancing the opinions of both the French and the English, but as a very wise man once said, “a good compromise leaves both parties unhappy,” and that was certainly the case with this decision. The French despised any involvement with the British at all, while the English felt that it wasn’t enough.

 

This event in Canadian history serves to demonstrate how Anglo-French relations defined the very nature of Canadian politics, and how Laurier’s ability to compromise ensured that the tensions between the two groups stayed in check and worked towards eroding the longstanding political barrier between the two groups. As well, it was the precursor of Canada’s involvement in foreign wars, including World War I, World War II the Korean War and many others. This incident also reflects on Laurier as a politician. This was but the first of many compromises made by him during his time in office, and serves as a prime example of how compromise can be just as polarizing as doing without.

 
Another issue in which Anglo-French relations forced Laurier to find a medium between the two was the Manitoba Schools question. Ever since the Manitoba Act in 1870, the English Protestant schools had the exact same rights as the French Catholic schools. However, with the increase in the English population during the 1870’s and 1880’s, opinion began to sway against the French Catholic schools, and many people wanted them abolished. The government of Manitoba did this in the 1890 Public Schools Act, which removed support for them. In 1896, however, Wilfrid Laurier and Thomas Greenway reached a suitable compromise: Catholic instruction would be permitted at the end of the school day for thirty minutes and French could be taught in any school with at least ten Francophones. There would be no government funding for these schools. This completely undermined the previously established equality between French and English in Manitoba and considered French the equivalent to “any other language.”
 
This habit of compromise exhibited by Laurier may have helped him further his political image, but in the end it stripped him of the support he would have needed in the 1911 election, which he lost. Had he chosen a more strong position on matters, or even any position at all, he may have retained some of his support from both the French and English. The significance these events is that instead of bringing anglophones and francophones together, his compromises only drove them further apart and against him. As well, this did nothing to quell the tensions between the two, problems which persist even to modern times with Quebec Separatists and the FLQ (a little while ago).