What we present above is a photograph (a half-size reproduction) of the upper part of a page from the New Brunswick, French-language newspaper, L'Évangéline. Page 9 of the issue of February 24th last. The list, of which we show only half, covers a full page. We counted 1,265 names. On page 3 of the same issue there was another list of 348 names. This makes a total of 1,613 names..
What do these names represent? The heading at the top of the page supplies the answer":
Notice of delivery of warrants to the sheriff for the sale of landed property for tariffs and taxes levied in the civil parish of Allardville of the country of Gloucester, in default of the payment of the above.
And at the end of the list we read:
Notice is hereby given that warrants will be issued to the sheriff for the sale of the above-mentioned properties for payment of tariffs, taxes, costs and expenses, evaluated and levied upon them, if the amount due of such tariffs, taxes, costs and expenses are not paid to me within thirty days following the date of this notice.
Dated in Bathurst, in the County of Gloucester, in the province of New Brunswick, this 21st day of February, 1962,
Marc-J. Mallet,
Chief Collector, Gloucester County
(The above legal notice is our translation from the French -- Ed.).
So here we have 1,613 heads of families summoned to pay their taxes and tarrifs, plus costs and expenses, within 30 days, if they do not want the sheriff to arrive armed with a warrant to sell their homes.
And this list of 1,613 names covers only the single civil parish of Allardville. There are other parishes in the county of Gloucester. From the parish of Upper Shéla, a man wrote us, when sending us this page from L'Évangéline: "This has not yet happened in our district, but it's coming. Everyday on the radio we are told to take $10.00 from our family allowance cheques to make some sort of a payment on our taxes."
And there are other counties besides Gloucester, in the province of New Brunswick. So there are thousands of families, and literally tens of thousands of individuals who are threatened with a like fate. Why? Because they haven't enough money to pay, their taxes.
They have no money but they still have their little cabins. And these very modest, frequently poor little homes, where parents are striving to bring up their children, these little homes are to be taken from them. Because these families are so poor in money and other things their homes are to be snatched from them!
We are publishing this photograph of a page from L'Évangéline because there are quite a few people who think we have exaggerated in our accounts of the poor families in New Brunswick and of the brutal manner in which they are treated because of their poverty.
When families have only their family allowance cheques off which to live, to tell them to deduct $ 10.00 from these to pay into the county: treasury is to talk like a hangman. Those who so glibly tender this advise what would they do if they had only from $6:00, to $8.00 per child per month with which to feed not only the children, but the adults as well? The first duty of adults is towards their children. For the individual, holds priority over all institutions, over the government even, and most certainly over the county council.
In publishing, this photograph we wish also to stigmatize the disgraceful lack of spine shown by those newspapers who consent to play the role of hired minions of those despoiling the poor. The publication of these lists by L'Évangéline, as well as, by other newspapers, brings not one cent of benefit to the families threatened; it aids them in no way whatsoever. But it's a fine display for the more fortunate who have their eyes open for bargains.
It has been said that L'Évangéline, was founded to defend the rights of the Acadians. We are prepared to admit this. How has it acquitted itself of this obligation? Personally, I would not undertake to judge the paper on this point, being but an irregular reader of its pages. But I fail to see how it is defending the Acadians, especially those Acadians who are too poor to meet the demands of government financial exactions, by publishing pages of names of the poor who are placed in the impossible situation of finding money they cannot hope to raise, under pain of losing their homes. Such publication may aid the coffers of L'Évangéline but it does very little for the stricken families.
If at least we could find in the issue which publishes this list of families to be despoiled, just one protest against a regime which takes from those to poor to pay taxes, their homes and property! Publishing such a list without offering the slightest protest at the crime being committed is certainly to give approval, implicitly if not explicitly. This dispersion of the Acadians for "the crime of poverty!', is it any more legal than the dispersion of the Acadians in 1755 by the conquering English?
It is too often the case, unfortunately, that the poor must not only undergo misery, want, but must do so without any support or encouragement. And when infrequent official aid comes to them, grudgingly given after a most detailed inquiry, it more often than not is accompanied by words of reproach rather than comfort and sympathy. How many times are the poor accused of being themselves the cause of their own poverty!
In the statutes of New Brunswick, there is an article of law which allows the tax assessors, at any time, to free a taxpayer from paying his arrears in taxes, in part or in whole, for certain reasons, one of them being that of poverty. And this can be done without having to make any application to the government. All that is necessary is that a simple order be written and communicated to the secretary of the county and the tax collector.
Why, then, does L'Évangéline not recall this article of law and bring it to the public attention by publishing it in its pages, expressing at the same time the hope that county councils will use it in order to help poor families, unable to meet tax payments, to keep their homes?
L'Évangéline cannot plead ignorance of this article of municipal law of the province of New Brunswick. Vers Demain (our French-language paper) has already published it twice. (It will be found reproduced on page 8 of this issue of The Union of Electors: — Ed:).
But the fact is, L'Évangéline does not seem to approve of the battle which Vers Demain and The Union of Electors is waging on behalf of the disinherited against those rules and regulations which make money more important than the lot of poor families.
We have received certain clippings cut from L'Évangéline, the contents of which are far from being laudatory of Vers Demain's ideas and the work being done by the members of our movement.
These sentiments, hostile to us, are said to have appeared in the column entitled: "Opinions of the readers"; and, supposedly, are not necessarily the opinions and views of L'Évangéline's editors and publishers. Well, that may be, but it does seem that we have read some very similar reflections in the pages of this newspaper coming from the pen of the editor himself, Jean Hubert. A discerning reader is not likely to attach importance, in this case, to the disavowal put down as a matter of formality.
Furthermore, there seems to be a policy in the choice of letters appearing in this column: The Readers' Opinion; all lay down the same line of thought. First was a letter over the name of Rhéal Haché, dated January 29th, last. A few days later, appeared that of Calixte Duguay, dated February 12, which letter heartily supported Rhéal. Haché's accusations against Vers Demain, the members of the movement, the directors and their immediate collaborators. The ease with which the adversaries of Vers Demain gain access to the columns of this paper, as contrasted with the nigh-impossibility of Vers Demain's supporters getting the same treatment, would indicate very clearly the attitude of L'Évangéline towards us.
We have no intention here of going into the details of the letter written by this Haché. And we intend to give even less attention to the "me too-ism" of Calixte Duguay. In the past 25 years we have had many more formidable and more important adversaries than these two in our battles. We are not in the least disturbed by their barking at our heels. We are a great deal more disturbed at the fate of thousands of poor New Brunswick families — who are not helped by the writings of the Hachés and the Duguays.
If we mention them at all, it is to support those who have written us expressing their distress at seeing such letters appear in the "journal of the Acadians". So we are going to dwell upon a couple of points brought out in these letters.
Rhéal Haché accuses us of sacrilege. Nothing less. He reproaches Vers Demain for, among other things, having quoted the following words of Our Lord: "Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?... Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat; or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?... Be not therefore solicitous for tomorrow."
Mr. Haché says that we draw as a conclusion from these words, the principle that it is not necessary that we devote ourselves to earning a living, that we should receive everything from the government.
Such a conclusion is certainly not ours. We suspect that it springs, as such, from the not-too fertile imagination of Mr. Haché.
Certainly we say that the financial system which governs us today is contrary to the councils of Our Lord. We are obliged to worry about tomorrow, not because there is any danger of a lack of wheat in the granaries, nor because there might not be any bread at the bakers, but we are afraid of the lack of money - especially since many of us are already without it, and have been without it for a long time, and consequently have not been able to buy that bread in the baker's windows.
Does Mr Haché accept the proposition that stomachs must go hungry even when the stores are full of food, simply because of money - or the lack of money? Money comes neither from God nor from nature. That is a very good, reason why all the families deprived of money should go in constant worry over where the next loaf of bread is coming from. Families of the same blood, the same nationality as Mr. Haché!
If Mr. Haché, is opposed to this sorry plight of Acadian families, what would he do about it? What would he propose? Take $10.00 from their family allowance cheques and give it to the tax collector instead of keeping it in order to buy bread?
Rhéal Haché is talking arrant nonsense - even if he is reported to be a professor of some sort - when he says that we teach that families should receive everything from the government. This is utter imbecility and we have never been guilty of it.
What can the government give to families? It has no cows, no chickens; it neither sows nor weaves. Certainly we cannot expect the government to supply food clothing and lodging... But what we do ask of the government is that it should remove that purely financial obstacle which stands between an abundance of goods and all the many needs of the Acadians of New Brunswick – and all the families of Canada. We demand that the government undertake the necessary legislation to realize that fundamental right of each individual, as a human being, to a share in the material goods of the earth. (This is a principle stated by Pope Pius XII - is it a sacrilege to recall it?).
And since Mr. Haché, and after him, Mr. Duguay, insists upon characterizing the methods of our movement as sacrilegious, let us put this question to them:
If you are fully aware of the sacred character of the human being, created in the image and likeness of God, and of the family, the only temporal society established by God Himself, do you not find that it is a far greater sacrilege to throw these individuals and these families out into the streets and out into the highways simply because they are unable to meet the exactions of finance? But for these two gallant defenders of that system, a sacrilege consists in our calling this or that member of our movement a "Pilgrim" because he takes to the road to go out and visit the sanctuary of the family. Most surely, they and we are not of the same school.
Mr. Haché reproaches us with talking against taxes. We shall continue to do so. It is nonsensical to take from Peter's plate in order to put something in Paul's plate. Especially when there is more than enough in the cupboard for both. Nonsense to ration goods when we have such undistributed surpluses. Nonsense to take away from private production in order to undertake public production, when the productive capacity of the country, far from being fully utilized (unemployment!) is quite capable of meeting the needs of both.
But it is of little avail to try and talk logic to these people who will not tolerate any check to a system which illogically, itself, would see so many families suffer privation for no good reason.
As for Calixte Duguay of Bathurst, he expresses the wish that there will arise other thoughtful: souls (like himself and Haché, no doubt) who will put the population of New Brunswick on guard against these "pretended saviours of Acadian humanity".
The "pretended saviours" are the members of our movement. Well, we have never held the pretension of saving the people of Acadia nor any other people for that matter. We prefer to leave such a style to the politicians.
But we do declare that those who will hear our message and undertake with a good will to shoulder their own responsibilities, with deep faith in God, and following an enlightening doctrine, will soon be able to work out their own salvation, temporal and spiritual.