Review Article: Confederation

“It will be a salutary experience for the post-World-War II generation to be reminded that “the Maritimes” is not a homogeneous unit with a common tradition. There were considerable differences in the views held by each of the maritime colonies and there were, especially within the oldest of these, deep divisions of opinion. This division of opinion was usually well expressed in their press. The four colonies together supported more than eighty journals-Halifax itself, with a population of only 30,000, had eleven-and Dr. Waite, speaking through them, describes brilliantly the interplay of local and national forces and reveals the negative as well as the positive influence of the papers and their editors. But his treatment of the eastern colonies (Chapters XIXIV) is perhaps less interesting as an example of the opposition of Howe and other English-speaking British Americans to confederation than it is in pointing up the role of external forces in the success of this grand enterprise. Confederation would never have occurred in 1867 had it not been for the policies and decisions arrived at in Great Britain and the United States. The author may have found space for only some twenty pages to describe the relations of British North America with Great Britain (III) and with the United States (IV) and for another twenty to introduce the effects of the Fenian invasions (XV), but the import of these cannot be measured by these few pages”

Ostry, Bernard “Review Article: Confederation” Dalhousie Review, Volume 43, Number 3, 1963 https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/bitstream/handle/10222/62721/dalrev_vol43_iss3_pp397_402.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y