few conditions were attached. As Howe said on his
return to Nova Scotia: 'She virtually says to us by this offer, There
are seven millions of sovereigns, at half {100} the price that your
neighbours pay in the markets of the world; construct your railways;
people your waste lands; organize and improve the boundless territory
beneath your feet; learn to rely upon and to defend yourselves, and God
speed you in the formation of national character and national
institutions.'[1]

What were the arguments by which Howe brought about this great reversal
of policy? Though knowing Grey to be opposed to the general principle
of public ownership, he began by singing its praises. The best road is
the queen's highway. The toll-bar and the turn-pike are disappearing.
'All our roads in Nova Scotia, made by the industry and resources of
the people, are free to the people at this hour.' The railway should
be built with the same ideal. 'If our government had means sufficient
to build railroads and carry the people free, we believe that would be
sound policy.' This being impossible, government ownership would at
least keep down the rates, and save the people from the private greed
which was at the time so manifest in the conduct of English lines.

He then went on to show with a wealth of statistics that Nova Scotia
was thoroughly {101} solvent, and that the Imperial guarantee was
almost certain never to be called on. This done, he turned gladly to
the constitutional side. That the road would pay, he believed; but he
advocated it not as a 'paying proposition,' but as a great link of
Empire. British North America must be united, and must be given a
place in the Empire. At present the colonial is doomed to a colonial
existence. 'The North American provinces must,' he wrote to Grey,
'either:

Be incorporated into the Realm of England,

Join the American Confederacy,

Be formed into a nation.

If the first can be accomplished, the last may be postponed
indefinitely, or until all parties are prepared for it. If it cannot,
Annexation comes as a matter of course. To avert it is the duty of
Englishmen, on both sides of the Atlantic.' It rests with Great
Britain to say which road British North America is to take. 'The
higher paths of ambition, on every hand inviting the ardent spirits of
the Union, are closed to us. From equal participation in common right,
from fair competition with them in the more elevated duties of
gove