ing members of the local
legislatures ineligible for seats in the House of Commons. Immediately
after the completion of federation a serious agitation for repeal of the
union arose in Nova Scotia, which had been brought into the federal
system by a vote of the existing legislature, without any direct
preliminary appeal to the people. Headed by Joseph Howe (q.v.), the
advocates of repeal swept the province at the Dominion election. Out of
19 members then elected 18 were pledged to repeal, Dr Tupper, the
minister responsible for carrying the Act of Union, alone among the
supporters of federation securing a seat. The local assembly, in which
36 out of 38 members were committed to repeal, passed an address to Her
Majesty praying her not to "reduce this free, happy and hitherto
self-governed province to the degraded condition of a servile dependency
of Canada," and sent Howe with a delegation to London to lay the
petition at the foot of the throne. Howe enlisted the support of John
Bright and other members of parliament, but the imperial government was
firm, and the duke of Buckingham, as colonial secretary, soon informed
the governor-general in a despatch that consent could not be given for
the withdrawal of Nova Scotia from the Dominion. Meanwhile Howe,
convinced of the impossibility of effecting separation, and fearing
disloyal tendencies which had manifested themselves in some of its
advocates, entered into negotiations with Dr Tupper in London, and later
with the Dominion government, for better financial terms than those
originally arranged for Nova Scotia in the federal system. The estimated
amount of provincial debt assumed by the general government was
increased by $1,186,756, and a special annual subsidy of $82,698 was
granted for a period of ten years. These terms having been agreed to,
Howe, as a pledge of his approval and support, accepted a seat as
secretary of state in the Dominion cabinet. By taking this course he
sacrificed much of his remarkable popularity in his native province, but
confirmed the work of consolidating the Dominion. It was many years
before the bitterness of feeling aroused by the repeal agitation
entirely subsided in Nova Scotia.

A gloom was cast over the first parliament of the Dominion by the
assassination in 1868 of one of the most brilliant figures in the
politics of the time, D'Arcy McGee (q.v.) His murderer, a Fenian acting
under the instructions of the secret society to which he bel