Note: Curé Labelle was very concerned with the exodus of French Canadians to the United States. What was his plan for keeping French Canadians in Quebec?
Extract:
“Any nation that makes agriculture its main preoccupation always has a degree of vitality and healthHealth is when you are free of injury, and physically and mentally well. Healthy eating means... that ensures its future…it is therefore the duty of the government, whose role in agriculture is immense, to promote agriculture using any means possible and ensure that the subjects under its jurisdiction are happy and free in a peaceful and moralistic state, remembering that the conquestConquest is when a country, people or individual conquers another. Conquers means to defeat and take... of world was the prerogative of the soldiers of agriculture, the Romans. To make this profession attractive for those who practice it, they must be well-paid and know all of the secrets of the art of agriculture.”
Source of extract: Free translation of Considérations générales sur l’agriculture, la colonisationgroupe de personnes (colons) qui s’établit sur un nouveau territoire (RECITUS)
, le rapatriement et l’immigration(1888) by Antoine Labelle, cited in Serge Courville, Immigration, colonisationgroupe de personnes (colons) qui s’établit sur un nouveau territoire (RECITUS)
et propagande : du rêve américain au rêve colonial, Sainte-Foy, Éditions MultiMondes, 2002, p. 561.
