cause the balance of power had been left
with the states governments, and not enough authority centralized in
the federal government. The lesson was not lost on struggling Canada.

{435} England's declaration of free trade brought the colonies face to
face with the need of some united action to raise revenue by tariff.

Then the Hudson's Bay Company's license of monopoly over the fur trade
of the west was nearing expiration. Should the license be renewed for
another twenty years, or should Canada take over Red River as a new
province, which was the wish of the people both east and west? And if
Canada did buy out the Hudson's Bay Company's vested rights, who was to
pay down the cost?

[Illustration: JOHN A. MACDONALD]

Lastly, was John A. Macdonald, the young lawyer who had pleaded the
defense of the patriot trials at Kingston in 1838, now a leading
politician of the United Canadas, weary of the hopeless deadlocks
between Ontario and Quebec. With almost a sixth sense of divination in
reading the signs of the times in the trend of events, John A.
Macdonald saw that Canada's one hope of becoming a national power lay
in union,--confederation. The same thing was seen by other leaders of
the day, by all that grand old guard known as the Fathers of
Confederation, sent from the different provinces to the conference at
Quebec in October of 1864. There the outline of what is known as the
British North America Act was drafted,--in the main but an
amplification of Durham's scheme, made broad enough to receive all
{436} the provinces whenever they might decide to come into
Confederation. The delegates then go back to be indorsed by their
provinces. By some provinces the scheme is rejected. Newfoundland is
not yet part of Canada, but by 1867 Confederation is an accomplished
fact. By 1871 the new Dominion has bought out the rights of the
Hudson's Bay Company in the West and Manitoba joins the Eastern
Provinces. By 1885 a railway links British Columbia with Nova Scotia.
By 1905 the great hunting field of the Saskatchewan prairies has been
divided into two new provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, each larger
than France.

Such is barest outline of Canada's past. What of the future for this
Empire of the North? That future is now in the making. It lies in the
hands of the men and women who are living to-day. In the past Canada's
makers dreamed greatly, and they dared greatly, and they took no heed
of impossibles, a