Studies in American History 
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the purchase of Greenland would flank it on the northeast, 
and ‘‘greatly increase her inducements peacefully and cheer- 
fully to become a part of the American Union”.®^ 
In the meantime Canada was preparing for expansion as a 
counter-movement to American expansion toward the north. 
For a time the success of the confederation hung in the bal- 
ance. In the eastern provinces, except in Nova Scotia, there 
was a growing aspiration for self-reliance, union, and nation- 
ality. Tho it was admitted that Canadian “sympathies might 
in time have ripened into political connection”, commercial 
union and self-reliance was now urged as a political necessity 
to prevent the success of the “starvation policy” which it was 
asserted had been adopted by Seward in order to drive the 
provinces to seek annexation. In Nova Scotia, where the 
effects of the repeal of the reciprocity treaty had fallen 
heaviest, and the conditions of commerce were critical, there 
was much opposition to the confederation. In 1867 an as- 
sembly at Halifax demanded permission to secede; but, after 
an unsuccessful application to Parliament at London in 1868, 
Nova Scotia was reconciled in 1869 by the promise of the 
Dominion government to pay her a subsidy of $82,698 a year 
for ten years as compensation for certain losses of revenue. 
Various causes combined to strengthen the bonds of the con- 
federation and to substitute a sentiment of nationality for the 
sentiment of annexation to the United States. 
The acquisition of Alaska, which was regarded by some as 
a kind of set-off or counter-movement against the recent 
consolidation of the British- American possessions, contributed 
much toward the stimulation of a determined Anglo-Canadian 
policy of completing the scheme for the confederation of the 
British colonies from sea to sea, including also the territory 
of the Hudson Bay Company.^^ The union of Quebec, Ontario, 
In September, 1897, a rumor was afloat in Canadian circles that the United 
States government had made overtures to Denmark with the object of acquiring Green- 
land, and probably was the cause of the hoisting of the British flag over Baffin’s Land. 
(The London News declared that England should acquire Greenland, if the United States 
had not already done so.) Officials at Washington denied the truth of the report and 
said there had been no negotiation by the American government for acquiring Danish 
territory since the days of Seward. The acquisition of the territory would give the 
United States an advantage in connection with the Hudson Bay grain-carrying route 
from Winnipeg, and would dispose of the danger of a transfer to Germany or to 
other European powers. 
R. G. Haliburton, International Trade our only Safeguard against Disunion 
(Ottawa, 1868). 
London Times, April 16, 1867. 
Colburn’s Ncto Monthly Magazine, June, 1867, 250-252. 
