430 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Memorandum. 
Inter Colonial Railway. 
Referring to the Statement made in the Money Article of the Times of the 16th 
instant, the undersigned desire to explain that neither by Earl Grey in 1851 nor by 
the Duke of Newcastle in 1862 was the guarantee for the Inter Colonial Railway 
made dependent on the acceptance by the Provinces of Confederation.“ Mr. Howe 
conducted the first negociation alone, and was a party to the second, and had the 
proposition to surrender the revenues and government of Nova Scotia to the Cana- 
dians as the price of the guarantee been made, it would have been instantly rejected. 
The guarantee was yielded as a favor to the Provinces, without any stipulation, 
and if the terms were afterwards changed to enable Canada to carry by Imperial 
pressure what public opinion condemned it was a great mistake, which the under- 
signed would respectfully suggest, ought not to be repeated. 
The writer conceals the facts that since 1862 Nova Scotia has provided for the 
whole of the Inter Colonial Road within her territory which is now under Contract 
and in course of construction, and that the Report of Mr. Flemming?®*, the 
Canadian Engineer, swelled the cost of the work from £3,000,000 to £4,000,000. 
No steamers have yet been placed on the route between Portland and Halifax. 
The undersigned have always been advocates and friends of the Inter Colonial 
Railway. They are yet, but there is a time for every thing, and they doubt whether 
when the people of England are considering how their supremacy upon the sea, 
seriously endangered if not lost, can be recovered, and how, the Empire is to be 
defended without breech loaders is just the time for the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
to go down and ask Parliament for four Millions to be expended in a country which 
we really have at this moment no assurance can be successfully defended. Turret 
ships and needle guns first and the Inter Colonial Railway afterwards would seem 
to be the natural order in which to consider these subjects, and the Colonial Secre- 
tary ought not to be asked hastily to bind himself by any pledge on a financial 
question like this of which, when Parliament meets, views, not quite in accordance 
with those of the Delegates may be taken. 
London, 43 Sackville, JOSEPH HOWE 
17 August, 1866. WILLIAM ANNAND. 
London, 
43 Sackville Street, 
Aug. 30, 1866. 
Private. 
Wm. J. Stairs, Esq. 
My dear Stairs, 
James Duffus goes by this Boat and will give you all the News. John Tobin 
also returns home, and you will probably have his version of things in general through 
some of his friends. I yesterday met him at dinner with the Archbishop. He does 
not say much about Confederation, but we are under the impression that he is very 
much mortified at being left out in the cold, while his quandom friends have been 
visiting the great folks. He certainly has been scurvily treated, and would, I think, 

2% The officers of the League were at this time: President’ Joseph Howe; Vice-Presidents, W. J. 
Stairs and Patrick Power; Secretaries, William Garvie and Robert J. Weatherbe; Treasurer, Robert 
Boak. 
%a Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915). 
