of the year, as Ottawa is from Vancouver
to-day. I can remember, myself, on one occasion being on a train which
took four days to make its way from Prescott to Ottawa.

Each province had its own constitution, its tariff, postage laws, and
currency. It promoted its own interests, regardless of the existence
of its British neighbours. Differences arose, says one writer, between
their codes of law, their public institutions, and their commercial
regulations.[2] Provincial misunderstandings, that should have been
avoided, seriously retarded the building of the Inter-colonial Railway.
'The very currencies differ,' said Lord Carnarvon in the House of
Lords. 'In Canada the pound or the dollar are legal tender. In Nova
Scotia, the Peruvian, Mexican, Columbian dollars are all legal; in New
Brunswick, British and American coins are recognized by law, though I
believe that the shilling is taken at twenty-four cents, which is less
than its value; in Newfoundland, {14} Peruvian, Mexican, Columbian, old
Spanish dollars, are all equally legal; whilst in Prince Edward's
Island the complexity of currencies and of their relative value is even
greater.' When the Reciprocity Treaty was negotiated at Washington in
1854, Nova Scotia felt, with some reason, that she had not been
adequately consulted in the granting to foreign fishermen of her
inshore fisheries. In a word, the chief political forces were
centrifugal, not centripetal. All the jealousy, the factious spirit,
and the prejudice, which petty local sovereignties are bound to
engender, flourished apace; and the general effect was to develop what
European statesmen of a certain period termed Particularism. The
marvel is not that federation lagged, but that men with vision and
courage, forced to view these depressing conditions at close range,
were able to keep the idea alive.

There was some advance in public opinion between 1850 and 1860, but, on
the whole, adverse influences prevailed and little was achieved. The
effects of separate political development and of divided interest were
deeply rooted. Leaders of opinion in the various provinces, and even
men of the same province, refused to join hands for any great national
purpose. Party conflict absorbed {15} their best energies. To this
period, however, belongs the spadework which laid the foundations of
the future structure. The British American League held its various
meetings and adopted its resolutions. But the