APeriod of Transition 133

During this period the Catholic clergy were often accused of becoming involved in politics and trying to influence the way the faithful voted. This applied especially to Bishop Peter McIntyre who used his ecclesiastical power to make sure that Catholic voters and politicians defended the cause of the Catholic Church in the prov- ince®'. Known for their submission to the clergy, Acadians were particu- larly affected by this. In 1863, an Irishman from Tignish complained, in the Catholic newspaper The Vindicator, about the undue influence of the bishop on the French voters during the recent elections in his area”’,

During his stay in Rustico, Father Belcourt took an interest in politics. He urged Acadians to take an active part in fighting against the unfair treatment they were receiving in the area of religion, edu- cation and land tenure. Convinced that it would help small tenant farmers, he supported, for example, the Island entry into Confedera- tion. He explained his position in a lecture which he gave in Rustico in 1865”.

Like most Islanders, the Acadians appeared at first to be against union. In 1867, their two representatives in the Assembly spoke out against Confederation. Joseph-Octave Arsenault, suspected of being a unionist, stated that people on the Island did not need the Canadians in order to govern themselves”, and Stanislas-F. Perry even went so far as to say that he would leave the Island if it were annexed to Canada’. Several years later, the project of union seems to have been more attractive to Acadians, at least in Egmont Bay. As a matter of fact in 1870 these Acadians said they supported entry into the Cana- dian Confederation provided the federal government granted a loan to purchase the lands of the absentee landlords and subsidized the construction of the railway®®. One month later the Honourable Arsen- ault declared that he was not anti-union. He explained that he regarded the project as “an alliance with a people like ourselves, and not with a foreign country or despotic government”®’.

Some Acadians felt that the entry of the Island into Confederation would make it easier to enforce their linguistic and religious rights. A young leader from Egmont Bay, Jean J. Arsenault, expressed himself clearly on the matter in the Moniteur Acadien in 1870. He stressed the fact that a large percentage of the population of the new nation was made up of French-Canadians who were thus in a position to