fic which now became a definite
issue and which remained the storm centre of colonial politics for
many generations. The merchants insisted that if this traffic were
extinguished it would involve the ruin of the French hold upon the
Indian trade. The bishop and the priests, on the other hand, were
ready to fight the liquor traffic to the end and to exorcise it as the
greatest blight upon the New World. Quebec soon became a cockpit where
the battle of these two factions raged. Each had its ups and downs,
until in the end the traffic remained, but under a makeshift system of
regulation.

To portray Laval and his associates as always in bitter conflict with
the civil power, nevertheless, would be to paint a false picture.
Church and state were not normally at variance in their views and
aims. They clashed fiercely on many occasions, it is true, but after
their duels they shook hands and went to work with a will at the
task of making the colony stand upon its own feet. Historians have
magnified these bickerings out of all proportion. Squabbles over
matters of precedence at ceremonies, over the rate of the tithes, and
over the curbing of the _coureurs-de-bois_ did not take the major
share of the Church's attention. For the greater part of two whole
centuries it loyally aided the civil power in all things wherein the
two could work together for good.

And these ways of assistance were many. For example the Church,
through its various institutions and orders, rendered a great service
to colonial agriculture. As the greatest landowner in New France,
it set before the seigneurs and the habitants an example of what
intelligent methods of farming and hard labor could accomplish in
making the land yield its increase. The King was lavish in his grants
of territory to the Church: the Jesuits received nearly a million
_arpents_ as their share of the royal bounty; the bishop and the
Quebec Seminary, the Sulpicians, and the Ursulines, about as much
more. Of the entire granted acreage of New France the Church
controlled about one-quarter, so that its position as a great
landowner was even stronger in the colony than at home. Nor did it
fold its talents in a napkin. Colonists were brought from France,
farms were prepared for them in the church seigneuries, and the new
settlers were guided and encouraged through, the troublous years of
pioneering. With both money and brains at its command, the Church was
able to keep its own lands in th