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some controversy the Dominion Privy Council, on January 
22, 1872, still adhering to previous objections, but admitting 
the unprofitableness of prolonged controversial discussion on 
points of difference, proposed that the imperial government 
as a means of surmounting the difficulties in the way of ob- 
taining the consent of the Canadian Parliament to the meas- 
ures necessary to give effect to the treaty should propose to 
Parliament a guarantee for a Canadian loan not to exceed 
£4,000,000 to aid in constructing a railway to the Pacific and 
in enlarging and extending the Canadian canals. The British 
government agreed to guarantee a Canadian loan of £2,500,- 
000 as soon as the treaty should take effect; and on April 
15, 1872, the Canadian Privy Council, feeling it was “their 
duty in the interests of both Canada and the empire at large”, 
reluctantly accepted the modified proposition. The maritime 
provinces also passed appropriate legislation for carrying 
the treaty into effect. 
In the meantime the American movement for excluding 
the Dominion from the Pacific coast, by peacefully securing 
control of the entire region between Alaska and Washington 
Territory, had been frustrated by a new Canadian counter- 
movement. British Columbia (including Vancouver Island) 
was finally “enticed into the confederation” only by the 
promise of a railway to the Pacific.®^ On May 26, 1871, she 
was united to the Dominion of Canada after a heated debate 
in the Canadian Parliament on the question of agreeing to 
the clause providing for the construction of a transcon- 
tinental railway, which British Columbia had exacted as a 
condition of her accession to the union. Canada agreed to 
begin the road within two years, and to complete it within 
ten years, but she did not complete it until 1883. Altho 
British Columbia contributed to the Dominion an irritating 
Alaskan boundary dispute which was not settled until 1902, 
its annexation was a factor of the greatest importance and 
significance in connection with the destiny of Canada and 
the later development of the British empire. 
P. Bender, “Canadian View of Annexation’’, in North American Review, April, 
1883. 
Thomas Hodgkins, Q. C., British and American Diplomacy affecting Canada 
(Toronto, 1900), 89-100; Hodgkins, “The Alaska-Canadian Boundary Dispute’’, Canadian 
Law Revietv, 525-537 (September, 1902). 
