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The split which came in 1917 followed pretty exactly the split that would have come in 1916 over bilingualism, had the Liberal members not been constrained by their devotion to party regularity to vote against their convictions. The movement for national government long antedated the emergence of the issue of conscription; it was, in its origin, Liberal.
In holding their courts in the Netherlands, the dukes of Burgundy had renounced their French origin. Bilingualism must thus be considered as a solution of the language question in Belgium in the fifteenth century. But though the people remained united, the literatures of the two parts of the country followed different lines.
By the end of the century, bilingualism was a consecrated institution both in Flanders and Brabant, the judges rendering their sentences in the tongue spoken by the parties and some officials using, according to circumstances, either French, Latin or Flemish. Under John the Fearless and Philip the Good, this situation, which favoured the centralizing influence of the dukes, remained unchanged.
Instead of threatening national unity, bilingualism was its necessary condition. For real differences do not lie in modes of expression, but in the feeling and the soul of the people, and it matters little if an image or a thought is expressed in one language or another, as long as they reflect a common temperament and common aspirations. The part played by Belgium during the war is well known.
The opposing contention that bilingualism had a legal basis only in Quebec and in the Dominion parliament with its services and courts was interpreted as an insult. Mr. Lavergne, the chief lieutenant of Mr.
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