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ACADIAN REPRESENTATION IN OTTAWA
L’Acadie, a French-English newspaper published at Weymouth, N.S. very justly insists on an increase of Acadian representatives in the Senate and House of Commons of Canada L’Acadie does this in view of the great increase of the Acadian population of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island between the census of 1891 and 1901. We translate L’Acadie’s article:
“The Census returns which came to us from Ottawa place the increase of Acadian population of the Maritime Provinces at 36.558 souls. Thus as we have already remarked, only countries inhabited by the French have not undergone a decrease of population, or in other words, without us Nova Scotia and New Brunswick instead of being able to boast of an increase of population over the year 1891 would have been short of the figure of that year by 25,000 inhabitants.
We quote here, side by side, the figures of each census:
1891 1901
Nova Scotia 29,838 45,600
New Brunswick 61,767 81,660
Prince Edward Island 11,817 14,600
Total 103,452 140,000
We give in round numbers the figures of the last census in order to establish more easily the proportion of the increase among the Acadians. In Nova Scotia this proportion is fifty per cent; in New Brunswick 31 per cent; in Prince Edward, 19 per cent.
“Now, there is a moral to this story. The Acadians form a fifth of the population of the Maritime Provinces .Have they at Ottawa fifth of the representation from these provinces? To our knowledge they have only a senator and two members from New Brunswick., Nova Scotia allots no representative to 45,000 of its intelligent citizens, faithful to country and government. Our province can, it is evident, lay just claim lo at least one senator and one member at the Capital of the Dominion. At Ottawa they appear to think that to refuse now a senator to the Acadians would be a denial of Justice, done to propitiate the English element, and his we are told, explains the delay of the cabinet in naming a success to Sentator Almon who died a year ago. What will they do? Shall we be sacrificed to please a declining majority? As to naming Acadian Candidates for the House of Commons at Ottawa, that should be done before the next elections.