There was, inevitably, some opposition, and it was largely voiced by the Hon. J. Israel Tarte, Minister of Public Works in the Dominion Government. It was not a note of disloyalty; it was simply the expression of a lack of enthusiasm and the magnifying of constitutional dangers or difficulties. No one in Canada expected the French Canadians, amongst whom Mr. Tarte was a party leader, to look upon the matter with just the same warmth of feeling as actuated English Canadians; and very few believed that the absence of this enthusiasm indicated any sentiment of disloyalty to the Crown or to the country. The people of Quebec had not yet been educated up to the point of participation in British wars and Imperial defence; they were, as a matter of fact, in much the same position that the people of Ontario had been in ten or fifteen years before. The influences making for closer Empire unity could never in their case include a racial link or evolve from a common language and literature. The most and best that could be expected was a passive and not distinctly unfriendly acquiescence in the new and important departure from precedent and practice which was evidenced by the announcement, on October 12th, that a Canadian Contingent had been accepted by the Imperial Government and was to be dispatched to South Africa. There was no active opposition to the proposal except from a section of the French-Canadian press edited by Frenchmen from Paris, and from a Member of Parliament who resigned his seat as a protest and was afterwards re-elected by acclamation--both parties deeming it wisest to treat the matter as of no importance. Mr. Tarte eventually fell into line with his colleagues, but with the public announcement that he did not approve the principle of sending troops abroad without Parliamentary sanction; that he had obtained the Government's approval to an official statement that this action was not to be considered as a precedent; and that he thought the only way to adequately meet similar situations in future was by definite and permanent arrangement with the Imperial authorities and representation in Imperial Councils. Upon the subject as a whole his attitude was certainly logical and loyal, but in effect it was untimely, unpopular and unnecessary. And the continued utterances of his paper--_La Patrie_, of Montreal--were of a nature calculated to irritate loyal sentiment and arouse serious misapprehension amongst French Canadians.