From French-speaking Canada the response was slower,
in spite of the endeavors of the leaders of the Opposition as
well as of the Government to encourage enlistment. In some
measure this was only to be expected. Quebec was dominantly
rural; its men married young, and the country parishes had little
touch with the outside world. Its people had no racial sympathy
with Britain and their connection with France had long been cut
by the cessation of immigration from that country. Yet this is
not the complete explanation of that aloofness which marked a
great part of Quebec. Account must be taken also of the
resentment caused by exaggerated versions of the treatment
accorded the French-Canadian minority in the schools of Ontario
and the West, and especially of the teaching of the Nationalists,
led by Henri Bourassa, who opposed active Canadian participation
in the war. Lack of tact on the part of the Government and
reckless taunts from extremists in Ontario made the breach
steadily wider. Yet there were many encouraging considerations.
Another grandson of the leader of '37, Talbot Papineau, fell
fighting bravely, and it was a French-Canadian battalion, Les
Vingt Deuxiemes, which won the honors at Courcelette.
When the war first broke out, no one thought of any but voluntary
methods of enlistment. As the magnitude of the task came home to
men and the example of Great Britain had its influence, voices
began to be raised in favor of compulsion.
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