270 THE GROWTH OF CANADA 



British North America Act, in which this con 

 stitution found legal expression, was enacted 

 by the British Parliament in 1867, and the new 

 system went into operation on the ist of July 

 of that year. The acceptance of the new order 

 by Canada was prompt and easy. To the other 

 provinces, however, the appeal of the confedera 

 tion was far less strong. New Brunswick and 

 Nova Scotia acceded only after a sharp conflict, 

 and after the Fenian forays of 1866 accentuated 

 the arguments of the reformers. Prince Ed 

 ward Island held aloof from the union until 1873, 

 while Newfoundland persisted permanently in 

 her independence. 



A strong and conspicuous influence of the 

 United States in the formation of the Dominion 

 was to be seen in the distrust and fear that the 

 great republic inspired; yet this was by no 

 means the whole of the part played by the 

 greater nation in the self-realization of the less. 

 The constitutional problems of federal union 

 that confronted the Canadians were in most 

 cases those that had been the core of American 

 history since 1776. Hence throughout the de 

 bates in which the constitution of the Dominion 

 took form, the experience of the United States 

 was continuously before the debaters. Amer- 



