A History of Canadian Wealth
From Independence of Québec - Resource Centre for the English-Speaking World
Preface
To say that this small group of individuals control so vast a wealth and the agencies of its production does not imply that they own it all. Between ownership and control there is a difference, yet the reverse of that commonly supposed. By means of their control of financial markets and distributive systems, a small number of men may effectively control sources of wealth which still may remain under individual ownership, as witness the case of the farms, of which control farmers throughout Canada are bitterly complaining. Also it is not necessary for magnates to own all of the stock of railroads, banks, factories and mines ; much of that ownership may be distributed among small shareholders, yet by their predominantly large holdings of stock, and through their power of directorship, those magnates can and do control those diversified, and often financially interconnected, sources of wealth.
The process of centralization of wealth has been steadily going on for nearly thirty-five years. The removal of unrestricted competition was first evidenced in the case of the railways of Canada. Beginning in about the year 1879, a considerable number of smaller and formerly independent railways (some of which had already amalgamated) were absorbed by the large systems such as the Grand Trunk Railway, and later by the Canadian Pacific Railway, and other railways. Of more than 140 separate and privately owned railways chartered and constructed at different times, a large number are now integral parts, either by purchase or by lease, of the main and great railway systems in Canada.
The highly centralized character of the Canadian banks is well known ; the branches of the important banks extend over an immense territory ; twenty-six of these institutions have 2,888 branches ; the Royal Bank alone has 338 branches, and the Bank of Commerce 367.
Perhaps nowhere in the world can be found so intensive a degree of close organization as among the bank interests in Canada. In the United States there are no less than 18,000 banking institutions, of which about 6,000 are under Federal charters, the remainder under State Laws. While a small group of financial industrial magnates exercise a preponderating control over the large banks, and in turn practically sway many of the small banks in the United States, and thereby concentrate in themselves the powers of a financial Trust, still the control there is nothing like, in compact centralization, that existing in Canada. The immense capacity of this concentration in controlling the finances and every sphere of activity dependent upon finance, is so obvious that it requires no explanation. To these ramifications of power is added another huge power possessed by the Canadian banks. This is their privilege, allowed by law, of putting out enormous quantities of their privately-issued money, or, in other words, bank notes — a power far exceeding even the great power held by banks in other countries.
Of the rapidity of concentration of industrial concerns in Canada much less is generally known. From January, 1909, to January, 1913, there were 56 industrial mergers or amalgamations which absorbed 248 individual companies. The total capitalization of 206 of these individual companies was about $167,000,000 ; this amount was increased with the amalgamating process. The authorized capitalization, including bonds, of these 56 industrial mergers was almost $457,000,000, or to be precise, $456,938,266. Many of the large individual companies thus absorbed were themselves the outgrowth of previous combinations.
Aside from the consideration of native Canadian capital, the amount of British capital put in Canada has been stupendous. In 1911, Sir George Paish, one of the editors of the London Statist, estimated that £372,541,000 of British capital had gone to Canada, chiefly in the form of investments ; of that sum £223,740,000 was represented by investments in Canadian railways. Since 1911, at least £120,000,000 more of British capital has been placed in Canada. The total of British capital in Canada is, therefore, more than $2,000,000,000. Capital in Canada from various Continental countries of Europe is computed at about $140,000,000. Of the $500,000,000 of United States capital active in Canada, $180,000,000 is represented in 300 factories which, to a great extent, are branches of the American Trusts.
This process of centralization is, it is needless to say, still continuing and has by no means reached its culmination. Economic forces are more powerful than statute laws, particularly so seeing that what is called the machinery of Government is administered at all times either directly by the beneficiaries or by the representatives of those ruling forces, no matter by what political name they may be pleased to call themselves.
In such an era, with fundamental economic questions — that is to say, problems of existence itself — pressing harder and harder upon the attention of those that produce the wealth, such a work as this is essential as a means of diffusing information. Since the control of so vast an aggregation of wealth is centered in so few hands, the questions of whence came these overawingly great private fortunes and of the evolution of this centralized wealth become of paramount interest. What was the origin of much of these mighty masses of capital ? What their particular sources ? By what means was this immense material wealth extracted, by what methods possessed ?
To give a vital survey of these developments is the purpose of this work. Necessarily, the investigation takes us back to remote times, for the aggregations of wealth that we see today are not in essence a sudden appearance, but are the result of cumulative methods, processes and transactions extending through centuries.
It will be seen that from the earliest searchings for wealth in Canada to the present time there has been a vital, definite connection, the developments of each successive period bearing a close relevancy to those preceding. From primitive powers conferred, and from fortunes amassed in fur trading, land and commerce, came the wealth often invested later in mercantile establishments, land companies, banks, railway projects, mines and factories ; and all of these pyramidically reproduced still other accumulations of wealth progressively invested and re-invested. Did we not trace this wealth to its primary sources, and give a continuous depiction of its development, the narrative would be headless, unfinished and disconnected, and leave some of the most important facts enshrouded in mystery.
Although long ago it was recognized that they who control the means by which a dependent class must live, control the livelihood and conditions of that class, yet it is not inordinately astonishing that thus far no economic work tracing the sources of these accumulations of private wealth in Canada has preceded these present volumes.
The reasons for this deficiency are not obscure. One reason is that the general attention has hitherto been focussed on other subjects and issues, ignoring the economic factors, the all-important significance of which was not adequately understood. With the growth of general intelligence and the accompanying great pressure of economic considerations, this understanding has been intensified, and is becoming still more so.
Another reason has been that the sources of information, such as histories, upon which the general public has had to depend for knowledge, have been absurdly and erroneously made to revolve around personalities instead of social and economic forces. Various arid volumes have come bulkily from the presses, but they either give no account of the currents of these successive economic forces, or they but incidentally mention only a few, vague, isolated facts. In the mistaken aim to present personalities as the determiners of events, these writers have far subordinated or ignored the realities, unconscious of the fact that such personalities are but the creatures of distinct and often sharply contesting economic forces.
Hence it is that to get the underlying, authentic facts — as much as possible, at least, from the available original sources — the author of these present volumes has had to dig laboriously into the Canadian archives, and tediously explore great numbers of official documents. Great as is the mass of facts here related, it can be well understood that the entire range of facts covering all the multitude of transactions of centuries can never be given in full. Many of them never found their way into official documents, and in other cases important governmental papers and returns, embodying certain definite valuable facts and connecting links, were never published.
Nevertheless a myriad of documents have been accessible to anyone animated by an aim to make a sincere quest for the facts. That many, if not most of them, have never heretofore been consulted is a striking commentary upon the character of conventional, so-called history. Studiously or mis-informingly avoiding the basic facts, and interpreting human progress and activities by the light of such superficialities, these products (whatever their motive), had the result of conserving outworn traditions and perpetuating fallacious conceptions.
Expanding intelligence, however, is not content with narratives obsolete in treatment, misleading in substance and spiritless in character. No longer is the diverting, obscuring or glozing of the facts accepted ; actualities, not appearances, are demanded. Having a knowledge of the fundamental facts we can be prepared to reject old standards and forms and unsatisfactory systems. We can then also rightly comprehend the nature of the processes that have resulted in conditions as we know them, and can directly apply that knowledge toward the obliteration of all that stands in the way of the full, un-shackled social, industrial and intellectual development of mankind.
Gustavus Myers
Chapter I. The Quest of Trade and New Sources of Wealth
When the Spanish explorers first saw the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, “ lined with high mountains and covered with snow,” they spontaneously named the unappealing country “ Acanada,” signifying, “Here is nothing.”1
The first sources of wealth were the waters of the ocean yielding their primitive supplies of cod, walrus and whale. Thither came vessels from Spain, England, France and Holland to load themselves with this abundant spoil from the Newfoundland Banks. The great demand in Roman Catholic countries for fish assured certain and large profits, and the prolific supplies of oil from the whale presented tempting opportunities to the roving mariners; from a single whale as many as four hundred barrels of oil were frequently taken. There was the vast wealth of the sea, but the annoying problem to these fishing traders and colonizers was how to get the necessary contingent of maritime laborers.
Convicts Impressed as Colonists
A distant, supposedly barren land to which it required a hundred days or more of tedious sailing to get, did not allure European workers. Cartier showed, in 1541, how it was possible to make up the deficiency in manning his armed expedition when he impressed the convicts from the jails for maritime service.2 These unfortunates were not convicts in the modern sense ; at a time when the slightest theft was punishable by hanging, and begging was a crime, the term convict covered conviction for even the pettiest and most inconsequential offenses. When, in 1598, La Roche was planning an expedition to Newfoundland he secured official permission to take “ criminals ” from the jails of Brittany and Normandy ; he picked out “two hundred sturdy beggars, male and female,” but took only sixty of them along, and of these forty-eight died during the rigors of the winter on Sable Island, and one was hanged for theft.3
In 1578 there were thirty to fifty English fishing sail on the Newfoundland Banks, and perhaps two hundred vessels from Spain. Twenty vessels from Biscay were engaged in whale hunting. Seven years later the fishing fleet numbered three hundred Spanish, French, English and Dutch vessels, the crews of which were armed for possible fighting service. A quarter of a century later the French fishing fleet alone comprised six hundred vessels, or nearly that number.
From these fishing expeditions developed an auxiliary traffic which subsequently became the principal trade, producing colossal profits, engendering conflicts and wars, and directly and indirectly causing a great and continuous sacrifice of human life. This was the fur trade, the main and long-continued source of primitive accumulation of wealth in Canada, of which wealth the great bulk went, during centuries, to European capitalists to be invested successively in land, trade, factories, banks, transportation systems and other channels both in Europe and in Canada and in other countries.
The Fur Trade and the Trading Companies
The first fur-trading company organized was the Company of Canada, promoted by David Kirke and Associates. Chartered by King Charles I, it was vested with the right to exploit the fur trade of the St. Lawrence, but its operations came to a sudden end when, in 1632, England restored Canada to France.
In the interval, Champlain's Company, that of Rouen and St. Malo, had been established in 1614 ; its shares were apportioned among the merchants of those two towns. The charter of this Company was given upon the express condition of certain colonizing performances, but the obligation was not taken seriously by the company, which confined itself to sending to Canada one solitary family. Its monopoly was abolished in 1620. The next year a charter was granted, on the customary terms and requirements of introducing settlers and missionaries, to the Company of de Caen, organized by William de Caen and his nephew, merchants of Rouen. This Company absorbed Champlain's, and the united corporations carried on their trade until 1633, although not in its later years without competition from a rival trading company.
Enormous Powers of Monopolies
Unlike the previous companies, the Company of New France was not owned by merchants of the smaller towns ; its principal stockholders were Parisians, who, seeing the richness and extent of the fur trade, aimed at concentrating the monopoly in themselves. They received a full monopoly for 15 years with full ownership of the entire valley of the St. Lawrence. For these exclusive grants they were required to introduce three hundred colonists every year up to 1643 — an obligation which was only nominally carried out, yet the Company continued to hold its monopoly until 1663.
Following the cancellation of the charter of the Company of New France, came the Company of the West Indies, chartered by Louis XIV in 1664. Its alleged object was the conversion to Christianity of the Indian tribes, but its privileges were enormous, covering trade in the West Coast of Africa, the East Coast of South America, Canada, Acadia and Newfoundland. The stock of this Company seems to have been used largely for stock-jobbing purposes ; in spite of its vast powers and privileges, the Company did not flourish, and its charter was revoked in 1675. Various other companies came into existence, the most important of which was the French East India Company. This corporation had the sole privilege of exporting beaver from Canada.
Necessarily all of these companies had to depend to a considerable extent for their supplies of furs upon individual or itinerant traders who roamed afar among the Indian tribes, and brought back their bales of furs. But as no one could trade with the Indians without an annual license, and these licenses were annulled at will by the French officials or distributed among favorites, the state of the fur trade was one of uncertainty. Having only a transient permission, the French traders followed no system and made no permanent establishments of any importance, but went whither they could easily and most quickly enrich themselves. This was even more so with respect to the illicit traders who, denied licenses, carried on the trade clandestinely.
Debauching the Indians with Brandy
The principal means used in trading with the Indians was in debauching them with brandy, and then swindling them of their furs. This abuse became so notorious that on April 17, 1664, the Sovereign Council issued a decree prohibiting bartering or giving intoxicating drinks to the Indians.5 This decree was called forth by the consequences of debauching an innocent race, hitherto immune from the knowledge of liquor, and the demoralization, atrocities and conflicts following in its wake. The traders ranging the woods, however, were far away from the reach of enforcing officials, and continued their debauching process.
On November 10, 1668, pleading as an excuse that the freedom of sale of strong drink would cause less demoralization than a restraint impossible to enforce, although admitting the pernicious influence of drink upon the Indians, the Sovereign Council gave permission to all Frenchmen inhabiting Canada to sell and deliver strong drinks to the Indians.6 A proclamation the next year forbade the lying in wait for the Indians in the woods or going to meet them, and prohibited drunkenness among the Indians.7
Immorality, Theft and Murder
“ What does the most harm here,” wrote Mother Mary of the Incarnation, Quebec, in 1669, “ is the traffic in wine and brandy. We preach against those who give these liquors to the savages ; and yet many reconcile their consciences to the permission of this thing. They go into the woods and carry drinks to the savages in order to get their furs for nothing when they are drunk. Immorality, theft, and murder ensue. . . . We had not yet seen the French commit such crimes, and we can only attribute the cause of them to the pernicious traffic in brandy.”8
Writing on November 2, 1672, to Colbert, Minister of Finance under Louis XIV, Governor Frontenac outlined the measures he had taken to keep in check the “ ever-active ambition of the Jesuits ” and he continued, “ But whatever pretense they manifest, they will not extend that language [French], and to speak frankly to you, they think as much about the conversion of Beaver as of souls ; for the majority of their missions are pure mockeries . . .”9 In another letter to Colbert, in 1674, Frontenac told of his difficulties with the Jesuits whom he had spoken to in vain regarding the state of the missions, “ they having declared to me that they were here only to endeavor to instruct the Indians, or rather to get Beavers, and not to be parish priests to the French.”10 But the Governor was himself accused by Duchesenau, — appointed on May 30, 1675, Intendant of Police, Justice and Finance in Canada, — of being interested in the Indian trade illicitly ; that he had intermediaries to extort and receive presents and bribes of packages of beaver of large value which his henchmen disposed of for him.11
Trading Interests Supreme
We are told that in 1677 when Bishop Laval complained to King Louis XIV of the widespread debauchery, Colbert ordered an inquiry to be made by twenty competent persons in the colony. “ Unfortunately,” says de Brumath, “ the persons chosen for this enquiry were engaged in trade with the savages ; their conclusions must necessarily be prejudiced.” Describing how their report minimized the extent of the traffic in strong drink, De Brumath goes on : “ We cannot help being surprised at such a judgment when we read over the memoirs of the time, which all agree in deploring the sad results of this traffic. The most crying injustice, the most revolting immorality, settlements devastated by drunkenness, agriculture abandoned, the robust portion of the population ruining its health in profitless expeditions ; such were some of the most horrible fruits of alcohol. And what do we find as a compensation for so many evils ? A few dozen rascals enriched, returning to squander in France a fortune shamefully acquired. . . .”12
Laval's emissary to Colbert was Dudouyt, a priest, who has transmitted to us a long account of the interview, “. . . On this point,” he wrote to Laval, “ I told him that the inclination of the Indians for becoming intoxicated is much stronger than that of the people of Europe ; that they have much greater weakness in resisting it ; that it is universal, and that the disorders committed by the Indians are more aggravated, and this I proved to him, my Lord, in this way : If, in a bourgade, there be liquor freely accessible to the Indians they usually all become intoxicated, old, young, great, small, women and children, so that there is hardly one left unintoxicated ; that if there be liquor for two days, drunkenness will continue for two days ; if there is enough for a week, it will last a week ; if for a month, it will last a month ; that we do not see in Europe. . . . It means, my Lord, persons who wish to have beavers from the Indians by means of liquor without respect to the risk of disorders they cause by that means, and without regard to their own salvation or that of the Indians.” Dudouyt told Colbert that Intendant Talon had caused the removal of all of the penalties and ordinances against the excessive use of liquors, and that moderation was necessary.13
Commenting upon this protest, Charlevoix later wrote that the secret had been discovered by the fur traders of how to persuade the King's Council that the trade was absolutely necessary to attach the natives to the French interests, and of how to represent successfully that the abuses were greatly exaggerated.14
Official Participation in the Fur Frauds
Duchesenau wrote from Quebec, November 1o, 1679, that he had done his best to prevent the interdicted Indian trade from being carried on by illicit traders, but, “All that has been in vain, inasmuch as several of the most considerable families in this country are interested therein, so that the Governor lets them go on, and even shares in their profits.”15
In the next year Duchesenau informed the French Government that there were great complaints against Governor Perrot of Montreal, who had occupied that post since 1670.
The complaints against Perrot were “ as well on account of his violent conduct as for his open trading. He is accused of having excited a sedition at Montreal with a view to obtain the repeal of the King's Ordinance forbidding subordinate Governors imprisoning people. This sedition I allayed.” Duchesenau went on to remark that Monsieur Dollier, Superior of the Montreal Seminary, “ while an honest man,” was not altogether a stranger to illicit enterprises in fur trading.16 Perrot was accused of pocketing 40,000 livres in a single year for his fur-trading operations, but denied that the amount was that large.17
Between Frontenac, Governor and Lieutenant-General of Canada, and Intendant Duchesenau an embroilment existed as to the respective rights and priority of each. It was in the course of this dispute that Duchesenau reported the prevailing abuses. He described the traffic of carrying brandy to the Indians, and intoxicating them.
“ The Missions,” he drily wrote on November 13, 1680, “ cannot be too much encouraged and too much countenance be given to the gentlemen of St. Sulpice and the Jesuit Fathers among the Indians, inasmuch as they not only place the country in security and bring peltries hither, but greatly glorify God, and the King, as eldest son of the Church, by reason of the large number of good Christians formed there.”18 He added that “ the desire of making money everywhere has led the Governor, Sieurs Perrot, Boisseau, and De Lut, and Patron, his uncle, to send canoes, loaded with peltries, to the English.” The report, he said, was notorious that 6o,ooo livres worth of peltries had been sent thither ; that the officials violated their own edicts by selling beaver to the English who paid them double what they received from the French in Quebec.19
Violence Supports Fraud
“ Violence, upheld by authority, decides everything,” reported Duchesenau in his Memoir. The Governor did as he pleased, and knew how to take measures to prevent complaints from reaching the Government. “ The authority with which the Governor is invested is an easy means of success herein, because, in the administration of justice and in what regards trade, he does only what he pleases, and in one or the other favors only those whose business has relation to his speculations, or who are interested with him. The force he has at hand sustains his interests, and he employs it only to intimidate the people, so as to prevent them from complaining, or to glaze over his violences by exacting from individuals false statements, [by] which he can weaken what may be said against him, and to turn whatever he does to his own advantage.”20
Dealing with the quarrels of the head officials, Edouard Richard says that these and many other disputes “ often originated in commercial rivalry. The profits to be derived by the privileged ones from the beaver trade were apparently the most seductive, for notwithstanding the reiterated prohibitions and threats of the minister, we find governors and intendants mutually accusing one another of participating in the trade in an underhand manner.”21 Precisely what measure of weight can be put to all of these charges and countercharges it is now impossible to say, but so far as Perrot was concerned he carried on the trade with flagrant openness.
So great was the general scramble on the part of all classes to participate in the profits of the fur trade that farmers abandoned their farms to go long distances hunting or trading, against which practice the King ordered Frontenac, in 1672, to issue the most stringent injunctions.22 Agriculture and manufacturing were considered far subordinate by the settlers in their avidity to have a hand in the fur spoils, although the King of France sought repeatedly to encourage the establishment of both.
The Fur Traders Dominate
Thus, the dominating trading class was the fur traders ; of this class the merchants were a substantial part, pursuing their search for wealth with the most unscrupulous eagerness.
The King had put in practice the endowing with commodities of soldiers and young women who married, and the granting of certain articles to new immigrant families. Talon wrote from Quebec to Colbert in November, 1670, that this practice “ is not agreeable to the merchants, who would like everything to be got from themselves, good or bad, at so high a rate that it would require double the expense were people reduced to what they would wish.”23
Constantly committing frauds in their fur dealings with the fur companies,24 the merchants, at the same time, demanded and received the greatest consideration, and filled high official posts. Whatever abuses they committed, whatever their frauds, the King's Cabinet usually sustained them ; the expansion of trade was not to be interfered with.
A Royal letter informed Governor Frontenac in 1674 that “ He must treat Sieur de Villeray with great consideration, for . . . he is the man who has devoted himself most thoroughly to trade, having vessels in trade with the Western Islands.” Frontenac was ordered to restore him to the office of first councilor.25 Bitterly complaining, as the merchants did, when any measure or law threatened to obstruct or lessen their profits, there was no barrier to their greed and avarice, and no effective restraint upon the facility with which they profited from the debauching and swindling of the Indian tribes. “ It will be well,” read a communication from the King's Minister to de Costebelle, in 1699, “ for the people to do something in the way of cultivating the soil, so as not to be at the mercy of the merchants.”26
Effects of Debauching the Indians
While the fur traders and merchants were reaping their profits, and the King's Government in France was finding ready justifications for the indiscriminate use of brandy among the Indians,27 Marquis de Demonville was writing, in January, 1690, to the Marquis de Seignelay, King's Minister at Versailles : “. . . I have witnessed the evils caused by that liquor [brandy] among the Indians. It is the horror of horrors. There is no crime that they do not perpetrate in their excesses. A mother throws her child in the fire ; noses are bitten off ; this is a frequent occurrence. It is another Hell among them during these orgies, which must be seen to be credited. . . . Remedies are impossible so long as everyone is permitted to sell and traffic in ardent spirits. However little each at a time may give, the Indians will always get drunk. There is no artifice that they will not have recourse to, to obtain the means of intoxication. Besides, every house is a groggery.
“ Those who allege that the Indians will remove to the English, if Brandy be not furnished them, do not state the truth ; for it is a fact that they do not care about drinking as long as they do not see Brandy ; and the most reasonable would wish there never had been any such thing, for they set their entrails on fire and beggar themselves by giving their peltries and clothes for drink. . . .”28
Beaver “A Mine of Gold”
Beaver was the accepted medium of exchange of the country ; there was very little actual money in circulation, and generally such coin as was current was avariciously hoarded by the officials and merchants. The deficiency of currency was at times made up by a fiat issue called “card money.” “ Beaver,” wrote Randot in his Memorial to Versailles, July 16, 17o8, “have always been looked upon here as a mine of gold of which everyone wanted to take his share. The settlers spent their time hunting in the woods, preferring a life of adventure in the woods, which brought them large profits with little toil, to the cultivation of the land, which requires assiduous labor.”29
Such official complaints, though frequent, produced little or no immediate change in conditions.
The vast quantities of beaver gathered — in 1696 there were 4,000,000 livres worth of them — resulted in a considerable lowering of prices of that commodity, which the Government sought to prevent by reducing the number of licenses and by other measures.30 Randot wrote that the trade of the country was carried on with the sum of 650,000 livres, which sum was very small, he said, for a population of from 18,ooo to 20,000 souls. The prices of merchandise were very high, “ and nevertheless the people will work only for high wages, saying that they wear out more clothes when working than they can earn by their labor.” The remedy for this state of things, he concluded, was to induce the people to take to the production of wheat, cattle, timber, fish, oil and ship building, by finding them a market for these products. He further pointed out the great possibilities in developing the fish and oil trade, and the coal, feldspar, gypsum and timber resources of Cape Breton.31
The All-Absorbing Fur Traffic
To a small extent, the utilization of the rich timber resources had already begun in 1686 when the Quebec merchants built a ship to carry boards to La Rochelle, France,32 and cattleraising and wheat cultivation were carried on to some slight degree. But the prime and all-absorbing traffic was the fur trade dominated and dictated by the merchants in collusion with royal officials, who, in order to monopolize it, frequently incited the Indians to war with its inevitable train of scalpings, butcheries and other atrocities.33
Accompanying the sway of the merchant class was that of the seigneurs or feudal lords, vested with the ownership of immense stretches of territory and with the powers, rights and privileges of a transplanted feudalism which, it was sanguinely hoped, could be established artificially, by decree, in the new country.
Notes
1. De Meulles to the King of France, 1684, Report on Canadian Archives, 1899 Vol., p. 43. The volumes of these archives are not numbered but bear the date of the year in which they were issued by the Archives Bureau of the Dominion Government.
2. Biggar's Early Trading Companies of New France, p. 15.
3. Ibid., pp. 41-42.
4. So, in his Memoirs concerning Canada, wrote De la Chesnaye, who had come to Canada to represent the interests of the Company of Rouen, Report on Canadian Archives, 1899 Supplement, p. 39.
5. Report on Canadian Archives, 1899 Vol., p. 54.
6. Ibid., p. 55.
7. Ibid., p. 56.
8. De Brumath's Bishop Laval, p. 113.
9. Paris Documents, Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State o f New York, Vol. IX, p. 68.
10. Ibid., p. 120.
11. Duchesenau to De Seignelay, Nov. 10, 1679, Ibid., p. 135.
12. Bishop Laval, p. 173. The “Twenty Principal Inhabitants” reported that the prohibition of the trade in spirits “ would ruin trade, without any equivalent and without remedying the evils ... because the English and Dutch sell it freely to the Indians, and will attract to themselves both the Indians and the trade in furs.”— See Report on Canadian Archives, 1900 Vol., p. 71.
13. Report on Canadian Archives, 1885 Vol., p. ci.
14. Ibid., p. x.
15. Paris Documents, Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, Vol. IX, p. 131.
16. Ibid., p. 142.
17. Perrot was later required to face charges. Arrested and convicted, he was imprisoned nearly a year in Quebec, and later sent to the Bastile in Paris. A favorite at court where he had powerful friends, he was soon released, and later appointed to the Governorship of Acadia.
18. Paris Does., Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, Vol. IX, p. 150. Duchesenau's Memoir. In 1691 the Religieuses Hospitalieres of Montreal applied for and obtained trading licenses on the ground that they needed funds “ to assist them in the re-establishment of their house.”—Report on Canadian Archives, 1899 Vol., p. 292.
19. 1bid., p. 160.
20. 1bid., p. 157.
21. Report on Canadian Archives, 1899 Supplement, p. 12.
22. 1bid., 1899 Vol., p. 58.
23. Paris Docs., Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, Vol. IX, p. 68. But when it was urged from Canada that a fixed price be placed upon the beaver, royal instructions came from Paris, March 11, 1671, that this would not be permitted :—“ Such a restriction would disgust the merchants.” Report on Canadian Archives, 1900 Vol., p. 252.
24. Report on Can. Archives, 1899 Vol., p. 58.
25. lbid., p. 61.
26. lbid., p. 337.
27. From Versailles came Royal instructions, in 1691, to the Bishop of Quebec in reply to remonstrances from merchants respecting the opposition of the clergy to the trade in spirits. The Bishop was advised that he must keep watch on the clergy, “and prevent them from disturbing consciences”; that the brandy traffic gave France an advantage over Holland and England, and that the “use of brandy is in itself very wholesome.”—Ibid., pp. 290-291.
28. Paris Docs., Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, Vol. IX, pp. 441-442. In fact, several Indian tribes and a number of chiefs had earnestly and pathetically implored the French officials not to allow liquors among them.
29. Report on Canadian Archives, 1899 Supplement, p. 227. “ Memorial on Affairs in Canada at the Present Time and the Settlement of Cape Breton.”
30. A Royal proclamation of May 21, 1696, to this effect repealed trading licenses and condemned offenders to the galleys.
31. Report on Canadian Archives, 1899 Vol, p. 227.
32. Ibid., p. 278.
33. De Meulles complained to the King in 1684 that Gov. Perrot, in the course of his partnership with De Lut and some Quebec merchants to monopolize all the trade of the West, incited the war with the Iroquois.—Ibid., p. 43. But it appears that De Meulles himself, in 1683, advised war with the Iroquois “ who must be humbled or annihilated in the interests of trade.”—Ibid., p. 42.
Chapter II. The Ecclesiastical and Feudal Lords
Aiming to reproduce in Canada the feudal conditions prevailing in France, the Company of New France and successive governors lavishly bestowed on favorites or Roman Catholic orders vast tracts of territory, creating seigneuries and ecclesiastical endowments. Many large grants of land “ fit for a kingdom ” were made by the Company of New France, but some were annulled later for non-compliance with settlement conditions. The ecclesiastical grants, however, remained intact.
A Gift of Two Million Acres to the Church
The total area granted to the Roman Catholic Church prior to 1763, and mostly in the seventeenth century, was 2,096,754 acres.
Clearly understanding that a strong economic basis provided security and wealth, all of the ecclesiastical orders vied with one another in pleading and scheming for generous grants of land. At a stroke, as it were, many of the Roman Catholic orders were converted into powerful landlords, with immense and positive economic resources guaranteeing them temporal overlordship and progressively increasing wealth for generations. True, much of the land was wilderness, but it was rich in fur-bearing animals, timber, for which the demand in Europe was constantly increasing, and prolific in some other potential resources. The wilderness of that time was certain to be the agricultural domain then and of the future. The land grants to the Roman Catholic Church were :
| Acres | |
| Quebec Ursulines | 164,615 |
| Three River Ursulines | 38,909 |
| Recollets | 945 |
| Bishop and Seminary of Quebec | 693,324 |
| Jesuits | 891,845 |
| St. Sulpicians | 250,191 |
| General Hospital, Quebec | 73 |
| General Hospital, Montreal | 404 |
| Hotel Dieu, Quebec | 14,112 |
| Soeurs Grises | 42,336 |
| Total | 2,096,7541 |
The importance of these great land holdings became more evident as settlement increased, and the wealth derived either from their forced sale, under subsequent Government pressure, or their retention, had a most pertinent and close connection with the later development of modern capitalism. Excepting the Jesuits, whose estates were later appropriated, the time came when the Roman Catholic clergy or orders were able by their ability in commanding money in rents, tithes, or by borrowing from their communicants at absurdly low rates of interest, to invest largely, as we shall see, in railroad and steamship lines and industrial stocks and bonds. The Seminary of St. Sulpice, the landed estate of which in Montreal is of enormous present value, reaching tens of millions of dollars, is now one of the largest holders of stocks and bonds in Canada. Possessing vast wealth, its income is admittedly great, yet no one not in the inner circles can state the precise amount ; the Sulpicians never, so far as can be learned, have made a public accounting.
Seminary of St. Sulpice’s Estate
According to Lindsay’s fanciful story, the Seminary of Montreal or St. Sulpice obtained a grant of the Island of Montreal (on which a city of 500,000 population now stands), thus :
The Island had been granted to Jean de Lauson, Intendant of Dauphine, on condition that he should plant a colony upon it, which condition he neglected. The Jesuit Dauversiere, assuring Lauson that he “ had a command from Heaven ” to establish an hospital on the Island, tried to get a cession, but Lauson had not received a duplicate of this heavenly command and demurred at giving away such a finely situated property for nothing. A second time Dauversiere, accompanied by de Faucamp and P. Charles Lallemant, the director of the Jesuits, interviewed Lauson, described how the apparition of the Holy Family had appeared to Dauversiere in the Church of Notre Dame, and how Jesus had put a ring upon his finger on which were engraved the names of Jesus, Mary, Joseph.
However, whatever the actual considerations, Lauson was induced to cede his grant to the “ Associates for the Conversion of the Savages of New France” who conveyed it by deed of gift to the Seminary of St. Sulpice of Paris, in 1663. A year after the British conquest, the Seminary of St. Sulpice of Paris, in 1764, to escape probable confiscation, assigned the property to the Seminary of St. Sulpice, in Montreal.2 Of the subsequent agitation against this ecclesiastical holding — how official reports declared against the validity of the title, and how, nevertheless, the Sulpicians were empowered to retain it — these facts will be narrated in their appropriate place later in this work.
Monks Get the Right of “High Justice”
Once vested with the right of ownership of the Island of Montreal, the Seminary of St. Sulpice claimed the full feudal property right of administering “ high and low justice ” on their domain. When in March, 1693, an edict from the King appeared, accepting the surrender of this right, but granting the Seminary the right of high justice within the Seminary’s enclosure and the farm of St. Gabriel,3 and also the privilege of nominating the first Royal judge, the Seminary ecclesiastics remonstrated that they did not intend to surrender that right and prayed that their holding of such rights be expressly recognized.4 Pronson, Superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice at Paris, promptly proceeded to nominate de Braussoc to be Royal judge on the Island of Montreal.
The domain of the Seminary of St. Sulpice was enlarged, on August 29, 1679, by a grant of islands in the vicinity of Montreal, and later by a grant of the seignory of the Lake of the Two Mountains, near Montreal — a property now of huge value and the title of which has been attacked in the Quebec courts. The conditions on which the Sulpicians were given this property were that at their own expense they should build a church and a fort of stone, the King reserving the right to take at pleasure all of the oak timber that he wanted on the grant.5
Clergy Place Themselves above Civil Law
Professing to be a law unto themselves, the clergy refused to acknowledge the supremacy of any secular tribunal. Summoned, in 1674, to appear in court, Abbe de Fenelon, Abbe de Francheville and Abbe Remy of the Seminary of Montreal, refused to take notice, on the ground that their priestly character protected them, and that the secular laws could not supplant the Holy Canons, and compel them to give evidence against an ecclesiastic in a criminal matter.6 The civil authorities refused to recognize the validity of this plea.
On every possible occasion the ecclesiastics attempted to assert their independence of the civil power, and make the Church dominant in civil as well as religious authority — a move which the King’s Government contested with cunning weapons. On one occasion, May 1, 1677, the King’s Minister wrote to Duchesenau that as he perceived “ that the Bishop was assuming an authority a little too independent, it would be perhaps well that he should not have a seat at the [Sovereign] Council. You must seek every opportunity, and on all occasions take every means practicable to wean him from the craving for attending the Council ; you must, however, act in this matter with great discretion, taking care that what I write be not divulged.”7
The exactions and growing wealth of the Church were described in a “ Memorial on Canada and the Clergy,” written in 1713 by de la March to Pontchartrain, Secretary of State.
De la March was a nephew of Boucher, formerly Governor of Three Rivers, and had been in the service of the Seminary of Quebec for nearly ten years. He described in detail the riches and great revenue of that institution, accruing from its seignories, farms, mills, houses, lands, cattle and vessels, and how it owned all the shore of the river from Montmorency as far as La Baie St. Paul, as well as the Isle of Condre and that of Jesus. “ They could do a great deal of good, but stop at no acts of injustice in striving to promote their own interests. They keep in great part for themselves the allowance His Majesty grants for the poorer curés and missionaries, and which is entrusted to them for distribution,” etc., etc.8 It was of the Roman Catholic College of Quebec that de Beauharnais reported later from Quebec to Maurepas that, “It is publicly stated by everybody in this country that the College of Quebec has been built out of the frauds committed in the [fur] trade with the English.”9
But lands and chattels were by no means the only source of wealth of the ecclesiastics. By a system of tithes every farmer was taxed on his produce, supplying a regular and never-failing income to the priests. An ordinance decreed in 1667 had promulgated a schedule of the amounts in tithes to be levied for the support of the clergy. Not satisfied with this legal rate of tithes, the clergy constantly sought to amplify their exactions.
System of Tithes
The Curés of Beauport and of l’Ange Gardieu exacted tithes not only of grains, but of all products of the soil, whether the land was under cultivation or not, and tithes on cattle, hay, fruits, flax, hemp, sheep and other possessions. “ The result has been,” the Sovereign Council declared, in 1705, “loud murmurs from the people when leaving the Church.” Prohibiting the cures from contravening the tithe ordinance, it ordered them to explain their conduct. Their defense was that they were “ reduced to living in a state of poverty which exposes them to the contempt of the people.” The protesting farmers replied that “ they are able to live in comfort and afford themselves the luxury of a barrel of wine every year.”10 The Royal decision was adverse to the priests.
In urging upon the King, in 1730, measures to enforce regularity on the part of the ecclesiastics in Quebec, Beauharnais and Hocquart wrote that their effect will be “ that there will be found no longer in Quebec so many useless ecclesiastics, who, for want of employment, are beginning to engage in worldly amusement, play, feasting and dissipation. The effect of their idle life is that they