domestic commodities, consequent upon the imposition of high taxes, national and State, and the use of bad money, alike prevented ships from being built and ship's cargoes of American merchandise from being profitably transported for sale to any foreign market, and under these several and in part continued influences the United States finds itself to-day without ships ready to do the work that through change in circumstances has to a certain extent become ready for the ships to do. With this presentation of the causes of the decay of American commerce, or rather shipping, since 1855, the way is now clear for a consideration of the methods and feasibility of bringing back and profitably using ships of the most desirable character, as instrumentalities in the work of creating new markets for the surplus products of the industry of the United States. DAVID A. WELLS. * In 1869 Franklin W. Smith, treasurer of the then Atlantic Iron Works of Boston, presented to the Committee on Commerce of the United States House of Representatives a detailed statement, showing that the cost of an iron ship of one thousand tons' burden would at that time be increased, by reason of the taxes, and the premium on gold, to the extent of $ 20,906 over and above the cost of a precisely similar vessel constructed in a British shipyard. On a wooden ship, of like tonnage, the increased expenditures at the same period, by reason of internal taxes and duties on imports, were estimated as between $6,500 and $7,000. ART. X. THE ULTRAMONTANE MOVEMENT IN CANADA. - CANADA is accorded at Rome that distinction in North America which among European nations is expressed by the envied designation, "the eldest son of the Church." And while Spain has sometimes, as at the Council of Trent, disputed with France the practical pre-eminence in Europe, Canada stands in this part of the American continent without a rival. The city of Quebec is awarded the honor of being the proud mother of sixty dioceses.* The Province of Lower Canada (now Quebec), which the rising tide of ultramontanism bore along with it, is now among the most demonstrative in its obedience to Rome. More than to any other individual the ultramontane movement owed its propulsion to Mgr. Ignace Bourget, who was Bishop of Montreal for a period of thirty-six years, and whose resignation took place in 1876. Contrary to the usual custom of Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, he admitted the new departure, and publicly rejoiced in the establishment of a "New School." This New School" approves everything the Pope approves, and condemns everything that the Pope condemns; consequently it rejects liberalism, philosophy, Cæsarism, rationalism, indifference." It is the glory of this school to follow in every particular the teaching of Rome, and to prove its sincerity by its acts. As Pontifical Zouaves, between five and six hundred of them took up arms and flew to the defence of the Holy See, when the civil power of the papacy was in the agony of dissolution; and in the hour of defeat they only laid down their swords to take up the pen to defend the cause they had espoused. In each capacity they served, in turn, with all the ardor and devotion of youth. There were among them descendants of the old noblesse and members of other bonnes familles who could appear to advantage in the drawing-room, and * Bull of Pope Pius IX., May 15, 1876. + Circulaire of Bishop Bourget, March 19, 1872. "Nous sommes heureux de compter plusieurs de nos Zouaves, qui consacrent leur plumes à la défense du St. Siége, ne pouvant faire servir leurs épées à la garde de la Ville Sainte." — Ib. acquit themselves without discredit in the literary circle, provided it was sufficiently narrow. These were the secondary leaders of the New School, the followers being made up of such materials as happened to come to hand. These secondary leaders were expected to become faithful echoes of ultramontane opinions in the legislature and the judicial tribunal, at the bar, in the lectureroom, in houses of education. As journalists, they were to make implacable war on mauvais principes, all principles being bad which were not in favor at Rome. As judges, whenever any of them rose to that dignity, they were to respect the claims of the church. It was an essential qualification that they should unlearn Pothier and all the Gallican authors from whom they had imbibed the principles of jurisprudence, which it would now be their duty as judges to apply. The Canadian Zouaves, whether they fight with sword or pen, are no mere mercenaries. Their heart is in the work. But it is the will of their commanders that they should take the enemy at a disadvantage. He is only allowed to meet them with tied hands and paralyzed tongue. There is and can be no free discussion where only one side is allowed freedom of expression. Authority, interdict, anathema, are the thunders which aid the battalion of Zouaves, and when their voice is heard opposition is soon silenced. However bold the determination, however great the courage of the champions of free discussion, the end is certain. The interdicted journal is stifled in a chilling atmosphere of terror. The Zouave in citizen's clothes, with a pen in his hand, is scarcely less an object of episcopal and papal admiration than when he takes the field in open violation of international right. Cheered on by Pope and prelate,* he gives no quarter, though himself exposed to no danger. "The Holy Father," says Bishop Bourget, "desires that the bishops should protect and defend the journalists and other Catholic (ultramontane) writers." He receives the words of the Pope as an order, and instructs the priests to "excite the ardor of these writers." The pontiff, he says, has assigned to these writers" the defence of the rights of the Holy See, the execution of its decrees in all their force, the combating of opinions and sentiments contrary to the teaching and authority of the Holy See, the pursuit of errors even to the most obscure retreats." * Encyclical Inter Multiplices to the clergy of France, pressed into the service of Bishop Bourget. Circulaire, 6 mai, 1871. The foresight of Bishop Bourget had early provided the neces'sary weapons of offence and defence. As early as 1854 he resolved to establish a French journal which should ostensibly be under the direction of laymen. Four years before he had cheered on the founders of the "True Witness," a journal "written by laymen, under the direction of priests." Pius IX. has deigned, from time to time, to give his special protection and blessing to writers of this school. The Bulletin Mensuel, published at Montreal, with the avowed object of aiding the restoration of the temporal power, has been so encouraged. The Courrier du Canada, once the organ of an archbishop accused of strong Gallican tendencies, received, after it became an extreme ultramontane advocate, the blessing of Pius IX., which is to descend to the progeny of the publisher to the third generation. So great is the horror of this journal of the terms "Catholic Liberal" and "Liberal Catholic," that it has come to reject with equal disdain the qualifying word in the party designation, "Liberal Conservative." But it must not be supposed that the liberty of these writers is very ample. They are forbidden, by a decree of the fifth Council of Quebec, to bring under discussion establishments of which the bishops are assumed to be the natural protectors and judges. To this decree the united hierarchy has added a prohibition to discuss the conduct of bishops and priests. If any one has a complaint to make against an archbishop, he must lay it before the Pope.† Practically Gallicans and Liberal Catholics have been treated as fair game. This section of the Church of Rome in Canada has been the object of the rancorous and envenomed hatred of the Jesuits and the Ultramontanes. In 1871 a Programme Catholique, based on a pastoral letter of the Bishop of Three Rivers, was issued, requiring candidates to pledge themselves to alter the laws relating to education, marriage, and the canonic erection of parishes, in the way the bishops should direct. A year later the Jesuit priest Braun, in a sermon preached on the occasion of the celebration of the golden wedding of the priesthood of the Bishop of Montreal, made a violent attack on the Gallican party in the Canadian Church, Circulaire, 11 mai, 1850. + Lettre Pastorale des Evêques de la Province Ecclésiastique de Quebec, 22 septembre, 1875. and asserted the absolute supremacy of the church over the state. The Bishop of Montreal, acting on orders from Rome, divided the parish of Montreal, contrary to the dispositions of the civil law; and the Legislature of Quebec was afterwards brought to enact that decrees amended by the Pope are binding in that province. When an attempt to put into force the decrees of the Congregation of the Index and the Inquisition failed only because the right to refuse, by way of penalty, burial in consecrated ground did not exist, the bishops secured the passage of an act by the Legislature of Quebec, which authorized each bishop to say in what part of the cemetery, the consecrated or the unconsecrated, any one shall be buried. Bishop Bourget, the great patron of the New School, struck the keynote to which its members were to respond. "No one," he said, "is permitted to be free in his religious and political opinions; it is for the church to teach her children to be good citizens as well as good Christians, by instilling into them the true principles of faith and morals, of which she alone is the sole depositary. Her divine mission is to teach sovereigns to govern with wis dom and subjects to obey with joy.* If One of the writers of the New School, Alphonse Villeneuve, a priest, declared his readiness to curse his own work † if the Pope should condemn it. Addressing Pius IX. in a printed letter, June 13, 1872, as "the infallible pontiff, the supreme king of Christian kings," he says: "You are the judge of consciences, the doctor of faith; yours are the words of eternal life; judge you my book. you condemn it, I also will curse it." Another priest, Alexis Pelletier, a prolific pamphleteer, who wrote under the nom de guerre of "Luigi," had the temerity to differ in opinion from the Archbishop of Quebec on a question of education. Orders came from Rome (1876) that he was to write no more on the forbidden subject. The offending writer at once gave in his unqualified submission, and ceased to write, not only on this, but on every other subject. When Pelletier exalted the authority of the church over that of the state, he was on safe ground, but when he ventured to differ in opinion from an archbishop, he was undone. Abbé Pâquet, a professor in the University of Laval, Quebec, bids the students "listen to the voice of faith manifested by the Lettre Pastorale, 31 mai, 1858. + La Comédie Infernale. |