Going back to my recollections of the last sixty years, if there is a complaint which through all my life I have heard almost daily, with deep regret, it is that the French Canadians were not striving with sufficient energy and perseverance to achieve a better and larger position in the business world. Their leaders, religious, political and civil, to induce them to increased exertions, have always pointed to the example given them by their countrymen of the British races: by the clear headed and far-seeing English business man, the sturdy and hard working Scotch, the enterprising and witty Irish. Thank God, I have well enough understood my duty to do my humble but patriotic share to favour this progressive movement. Never, in so wisely advising the French Canadians, any one supposed for a minute that he was leading them to the infested pond of _mercantile corruption_. The change wished by all was becoming more urgent. All were looking for the best means to carry it out. Our leaders, having at their head, by right and merit, our religious chiefs under the authority of a prince of our Church, his Eminence the Cardinal-Archbishop of Quebec, took the initiative with an ever increasing interest in the success they considered so important. The establishment of a permanent school of high commercial education and of several technical schools was most favourably approved. Political economy is even, in a certain measure, taught in several of our classical colleges for secondary education. The necessity for our young men of knowing the English language, to succeed in commercial, industrial and financial pursuits in Canada and in the neighbouring Republic, is more and more generally admitted. The French Canadians, fully enjoying the undoubted right to do so, aspire to achieve an advantageous and honourable position in commerce, in industry, in finance, in transportation, in mine working. The more we realize this goal of our legitimate ambition, the more we are also intensifying our efforts to promote agricultural progress and the improvement of our country roads. If, in all the branches of our national activity, we obtain the success we hope for, one single man alone amongst us shudders at the idea that the French Canadians will blindly destroy their race with a mortal dose of the cursed "MERCANTILISM" so dishonourable to the British races. And Mr. Bourassa, instead of heartily joining with all the leaders of his race--Cardinal, Archbishops, Bishops, priests, statesmen, political men, judges, professional men, merchants, manufacturers, financiers,--to favour, as much as possible, the commercial and technical training of his compatriots, sneers at such efforts which, in his candid opinion, are only plunging them in the irremediable depths of "MERCANTILE CORRUPTION"! Are not such abominable teachings a curse to all those of the race to which they are addressed with an unsurpassed cynicism? CHAPTER XXIX.