The most easterly of the provinces, little Prince Edward Island, had drawn back in 1865, content in isolation.Eight years later this province entered the fold.Hard times and a glimpse of the financial strength of the new federation had wrought a change of heart.The solution of the century-old problem of the island, absentee landlordism, threatened to strain the finances of the province; and men began to look to Ottawa for relief.A railway crisis turned their thoughts in the same direction.The provincial authorities had recently arranged for the building of a narrow-gauge road from one end of the island to the other.It was agreed that the contractors should be paid 5000 pounds a mile in provincial debentures, but without any stipulation as to the total length, so that the builders caused the railway to meander and zigzag freely in search of lower grades or long paying stretches.In 1873, which was everywhere a year of black depression, it was found that these debentures, which were pledged by the contractors to a local bank for advances, could not be sold except at a heavy loss.The directors of the bank were influential in the Government of the province.It was not surprising, therefore, that the government soon opened negotiations with Ottawa.The Dominion authorities offered generous terms, financing the land purchase scheme, and taking over the railway.Some of the islanders made bitter charges, but the Legislature confirmed the agreement, and on July 1, 1873, Prince Edward Island entered Confederation.
While Prince Edward Island was deciding to come in, Nova Scotia was straining every nerve to get out.There was no question that Nova Scotia had been brought into the union against its will.The provincial Legislature in 1866, it is true, backed Tupper.But the people backed Howe, who thereupon went to London to protest against the inclusion of Nova Scotia without consulting the electors, but he was not heeded.The passing of the Act only redoubled the agitation.In the provincial election of 1867, the anti-Confederates carried thirty-six out of thirty-eight seats.
In the federal election Tupper was the only union candidate returned in nineteen seats contested.A second delegation was sent to London to demand repeal.Tupper crossed the ocean to counter this effort and was successful.Then he sought out Howe, urged that further agitation was useless and could only bring anarchy or, what both counted worse, a movement for annexation to the United States, and pressed him to use his influence to allay the storm.Howe gave way; unfortunately for his own fame, he went further and accepted a seat in the federal Cabinet.Many of his old followers kept up the fight, but others decided to make a bargain with necessity.Macdonald agreed to give the province "better terms," and the Dominion assumed a larger part of its debt.The bitterness aroused by Tupper's high-handed procedure lingered for many a day; but before the first Parliament was over, repeal had ceased to be a practical issue.
Union could never be real so long as leagues of barren, unbroken wilderness separated the maritime from the central provinces.
Free intercourse, ties of trade, knowledge which would sweep away prejudice, could not come until a railway had spanned this wilderness.In the fifties plans had been made for a main trunk line to run from Halifax to the Detroit River.This ambitious scheme proved too great for the resources of the separate provinces, but sections of the road were built in each province.
As a condition of Confederation, the Dominion Government undertook to fill in the long gaps.Surveys were begun immediately; and by 1876, under the direction of Sandford Fleming, an engineer of eminence, the Intercolonial Railway was completed.It never succeeded in making ends meet financially, but it did make ends meet politically.In great measure it achieved the purpose of national solidification for which it was mainly designed.
Meanwhile the bounds of the Dominion were being pushed westward to the Pacific.The old province of Canada, as the heir of New France, had vague claims to the western plains, but the Hudson's Bay Company was in possession.The Dominion decided to buy out its rights and agreed, in 1869, to pay the Company 300,000 pounds for the transfer of its lands and exclusive privileges, the Company to retain its trading posts and two sections in every township.So far all went well.But the Canadian Government, new to the tasks of empire and not as efficient in administration as it should have been, overlooked the necessity of consulting the wishes and the prejudices of the men on the spot.It was not merely land and buffalo herds which were being transferred but also sovereignty over a people.
In the valley of the Red River there were some twelve thousand metis, or half-breeds, descendants of Indian mothers and French or Scottish fathers.The Dominion authorities intended to give them a large share in their own government but neglected to arrange for a formal conference.The metis were left to gather their impression of the character and intentions of the new rulers from indiscreet and sometimes overbearing surveyors and land seekers.In 1869, under the leadership of Louis Riel, the one man of education in the settlement, able but vain and unbalanced, and with the Hudson's Bay officials looking on unconcerned, the metis decided to oppose being made "the colony of a colony." The Governor sent out from Ottawa was refused entrance, and a provisional Government under Riel assumed control.The Ottawa authorities first tried persuasion and sent a commission of three, Donald A.Smith (afterwards Lord Strathcona), Colonel de Salaberry, and Vicar General Thibault.
