18 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



their obstruction could be overcome the great question would be the 

 terms.^ 



In an early despatch in which he deals very generally with the 

 subject for the purpose of showing the divergent influences operating 

 to support the movement, and the resultant difficulty in framing- 

 terms to suit all shades of thought, Governor Musgrave points out 

 that to some, Confederation meant the tariff question; to others 

 freedom from debt and improved financial condition; to others, 

 Responsible Government; to others, a Free Port.^ The problem 

 to be solved was: granting that the opposition of the official members 

 of the Legislative Council could be overcome, how to prepare a 

 proposal for union which should include such terms as the majority 

 of the colonists would accept and at the same time be acceptable to 

 the Dominion Government. On two terms he found unanimit}^ in 

 the Colony; they offered safe starting points. All the people — 

 Confederation ists and anti-Confederationists alike^ — were agreed that 

 if union were to be consummated, an indispensable condition was 

 adequate overland communication, which, being interpreted, meant a 

 railway to connect the Pacific seaboard with the eastern provinces. 

 DeCosmos' original plan of 1868 had only called for a wagon road; 

 the Yale Convention of 1868 had not dared to go further than a 

 request for a wagon road; and, though in the public mind the thought 

 of a railroad had taken root, yet no one in an official position had 

 yet had the hardihood to suggest a railway as a term. The absorption 

 of the heavy colonial debt by Canada and special financial treatment 

 were conditions upon which all insisted. The difference of opinion 

 here lay in the quantum of the grant. The Free Port question offered 

 greater difficulty; true, it was only asked for by Victoria, but practic- 

 ally one half of the population was resident there. The term, that 

 from the outset promised most trouble, was Responsible Government. 

 The struggle with the Legislative Council in the days of Governor 

 Seymour had raised many advocates of Responsible Government 

 who would not be placated with any suggestion of Representative 

 Government. These two terms Governor Musgrave at the outset 

 opposed. "When the leaders find," he writes, "that neither Re- 

 sponsible Government nor a stipulation for a Free Port can reasonably 

 be made part of the programme, I am strongly of opinion that there 

 will be much abatement of present enthusiasm." ^"^ 



Confederation thus had two facets: Is it desirable? If so, what 

 shall be the terms? Continued existence as a Crown Colony was 

 quite impossible; the burden of the existing debt, the decreasing 

 population, the gradual waning of the only real industry — gold mining, 



