The Attraction of the North. 21 



from the International Boundary on the south to the Arctic Circle, 

 Canada contains very divergent interests — interests predicated upon 

 the physical geography and natural resources of the country, which, 

 even under the best conducted parliamentary rule, must frequently 

 clash, setting Province against Province, and section against section; 

 or, perhaps, more properly speaking, the Provincial against the 

 Federal authority. 



Nova Scotia was the first to apprehend this danger and to 

 raise this cry. Before Confederation was an accomplished fact, in 

 1867, and while the scheme was being agitated, some of the people 

 of that Province looked upon the promised Intercolonial Railway as 

 an effort to change the natural channels of commerce. If built as a 

 Government measure, they reasoned, the Government would be in 

 duty bound to sustain it by encouraging in every possible way such 

 inter- Provincial commerce as would enable Montreal and Toronto in 

 a great degree to supplant New York and Boston in their trade 

 relations with Halifax and St. John. The one was a natural 

 channel of commerce, the other artificial. Both were advisable, but 

 the latter could become self-sustaining only under a tariff sufficiently 

 protective to cut off a great portion of the shipping trade between 

 the United States and the Maritime Provinces — a policy which the 

 people down by the sea have not yet been able to fully reconcile 

 with their geographical position. 



But Confederation was accomplished, the Intercolonial was con- 

 structed, and the days of the high tariff were inaugurated, not to 

 protect the railway, but resulting in such protection all the same. 

 Immediately Nova Scotians began to trade with Montreal and the 

 cities of Ontario, and in such proportion as this was done the Inter- 

 colonial reaped a benefit and the shipping trade between Nova 

 Scotia and the United States suffered loss. All this was probably 

 in the interests of the Dominion, as a whole, and possibly for the 

 ultimate welfare of Nova Scotia, but many of the people did not, 

 for a long time, readily accept the new situation ; in fact they do not 

 accept it yet. 



History again repeats itself. The case of Manitoba in 1880 

 and 1881, in respect .of the Pacific Railway, was very much the 



