In 1866 the Legislature of New Brunswick met under exciting circumstances. Governor Gordon, in his speech, announced that it was the earnest wish of the Queen that the Provinces should unite in one confederacy, and strongly urged the question upon the Legislature. The Smith-Hatheway Administration was willing to meet the royal wish half-way, provided that New Brunswick obtained better terms in the compact than those offered in the Quebec scheme. But the public were not disposed to abide by the half-way marches of the Ministry or even to tolerate its existence. The Legislative Council passed an address expressing the desire that the Imperial Government might unite New Brunswick and the other Provinces in a federative union. The Ministry were obliged to resign, and the Governor called on Mr. [now Sir] Leonard Tilley to form an administration. A dissolution followed, and to the same length which the Province had before gone in opposing confederation it now went in supporting the scheme. This election had a marked influence on the fortunes of confederation in other quarters. “The destiny of British North America, indeed," says Mr. Archer, "was decided in New Brunswick." Nova Scotia appointed delegates to London to perfect a measure of union. Meanwhile the little Province in the Gulf [Prince Edward Island] remained refractory, while her more rugged sister out on the edge of the Atlantic [Newfoundland] was listless. The little meadow Province afterward fell before the wooer, but the "ancient colony" chose, as it seems, perpetual celibacy.

In November, 1866, the Canadian delegation, consisting of Messrs. John A. Macdonald, George E. Cartier, A. T. Galt, W. P. Howland, William McDougall, and H. L. Langevin, went to England, where they were to meet the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick delegates to discuss the confederation plan. The Nova Scotia delegates were Messrs. Tupper, Archibald, Henry, McCully, and Ritchie; those of New Brunswick were Messrs. Tilley, Mitchell, Fisher, Johnson, and Robert Duncan Wilmot. The delegates met at Westminister palace on December 4th, and, by preeminence, the chair was given to the Hon. John A. Macdonald during the conference. The conference sat till December 24th, after which the assemblage were in a position to proceed with the structure of a constitution. Though some of

the ablest men the colonies ever produced were instrumental in framing the new charter, Mr. Macdonald, it was readily admitted, was the master-head. Many a time during the progress of the negotiations conflicting interests arose, which, but for careful handling, might have wrecked the scheme; and here the matchless tact of the Attorney-General of Canada West preeminently asserted itself.

Several concessions were made to the Maritime Provinces, and a more uniform and equitable feature was given to the whole. The Nova Scotia delegates were confronted by the colossal figure of Joseph Howe, who poured out a stream of fiery eloquence against the confederation; but those who were present say that Doctor Tupper turned the orator's arguments back with such force and clearness that the Imperial Government never for a moment wavered in concluding what was its duty to Nova Scotia. After the conclusion of the discussion on the general scheme, the conference, in conjunction with the Imperial law officers, prepared certain draft bills, which were afterward fused into a harmonious whole, and submitted to the Imperial Parliament on February 5th following. On March 29th the amalgamated bill received the royal assent; and on April 12th another Imperial act was passed, authorizing the commissioners of the treasury to guarantee interest on a loan not to exceed three million pounds sterling, which sum was to be appropriated to the construction of an intercolonial railway between Halifax and the St. Lawrence. The union was not considered perfected by the constitutional ceremony, and needed a firmer linking by the bonds of iron. On May 22d a royal proclamation was issued giving effect to "The British North America Act," and appointing the first day of July following as the date on which it should come in force.

Briefly, the act provided that the Provinces of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia should be one dominion, under the name of Canada. This dominion was to be divided into four Provinces-Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia; the boundaries of the former two to be the same as those of the old Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada; the boundaries of the two Maritime Provinces remaining unchanged. The executive authority, and the command of the naval and military forces, were vested in the Imperial Sovereign, represented by a governor

general or other executive officer for the time being. The city of Ottawa was declared the seat of government during the sovereign's pleasure. The legislative machinery was to consist of a viceroy or his deputy, and a ministerial council, to be styled the Queen's Privy Council of Canada, the members of which body were to be chosen by the Governor-General and to hold office during his pleasure. The legislative power was vested in a parliament to consist of the Queen, the Senate, and the House of Commons. It was provided that a parliament should be held at least once in each year, so that not more than a twelvemonth might elapse between session and session. The system of election to the political dead-house [the Senate] was abolishedthough the thing itself was maintained—and it was provided instead that the Senate should consist of seventy-two life members, twenty-four for Ontario, twenty-four for Quebec-an apportionment which, in view of the disparity of population and the outlook of increased inequality, would have been a rank injustice, but that the members so distributed are but the shadows in an institution which in practice is a myth-and twelve for each of the Maritime Provinces; the members to possess certain property qualifications, to be appointed by the Crown, and to retain their seats for life unless guilty of gross misbehavior. Provision was made for increasing the membership of the body, but the number (as finally arranged) was not to exceed eighty-two, or to reach that limit unless upon the entry of Newfoundland into the Confederation. The principle of representation by population was established for the House of Commons, the basis adopted for the original adjustment being the census of 1861. It was declared, however, that an adjustment should take place every ten years, upon a census of population being obtained. The representation of Quebec was permanently fixed at sixtyfive members, while that of each of the other Provinces was to bear the same relation to the population thereof that sixty-five should from time to time bear to the population of Quebec.

The duration of the House of Commons was not to exceed five years. Constitutions were likewise given to the four Provinces embraced in the union. Each comprised a lieutenantgovernor who was to be appointed by the Governor-General, paid out of the general treasury, and to hold office for five years;

an executive council which was to be appointed by the lieutenant-governor, who had the power of dismissal; a legislative council to be nominated by the Lieutenant-Governor and to hold their seats for life; and the House of Assembly. Such Legislature was to have control over local affairs, all questions of a character affecting the Dominion at large falling within the jurisdiction of the General Government. Provision was made, likewise, in the British North America Act, for the admission into the Confederation of any colony that had so far refused to be a party to the compact. The royal proclamation announced the names of seventy-two senators, thirty-six of whom were conservatives and thirty-six reformers; so that when the date that was to witness the birth of the Dominion came round, the machinery was in readiness to set in motion.

THE PURCHASE OF ALASKA

A.D. 1867

CHARLES SUMNER

One need not be old at this date to remember that in his school-days the geographies labelled as" Russian Possessions "a great country in the northwest corner of North America. It was one of those unexplored and mysterious regions to which the poets and romancers were at liberty to attribute almost any imaginable wild beast, natural feature, or action of the elements; and Campbell utilized it in his famous lines

"Waft across the waves' tumultuous roar

The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore,"

which became so familiar to almost every class of readers that few thought of Alaska as anything but a desolate land of ice and wolves, with the pitiful cry of the famishing animals almost heard across the wide Pacific. When the United States bought the country, in 1867, it was a favorite expression with those who opposed the purchase to allude to it as 'Seward's icebergs," and to say that seven million dollars was a large ice-bill for a single summer. It is now known that Alaska is a land of gold, a land of furs, a land of fish, a land with a mighty river, a land that has the highest mountain on the continent and the greatest glacier in the world, a land that attracts the same class of tourists that have heretofore gone to Norway for its wild fiords and the midnight sun. Moreover, it was not altogether a land of desolation; for it had native inhabitants, and they had their own literature-prose and poetry-rude, but picturesque and interesting. When it was purchased it added almost half as much territory as the United States already possessed; the chain of Aleutian Islands stretches far toward the Orient; and with the subsequent acquisition of Guam and the Philippines, we may almost paraphrase a famous saying and declare that the stroke of the American hammer and scream of the American whistle are heard round the globe.

The chapter that follows is the main part of a speech delivered in the United States Senate by Charles Sumner when the treaty was under consideration. It is especially interesting in view of the recent controversy over the boundary between Alaska and British America, which was amicably settled by arbitration.

You

have just listened to the reading of the treaty by which Russia cedes to the United States all her possessions on the North American continent in consideration of seven million two hundred thousand dollars, to be paid by the United States. On