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The Pros and Cons of Federation

source: The Protestant, Charlottetown
date: Saturday, September 10, 1864

They [The Canadians] have decoyed them [the Maritime Delegates] clean away from legislative union - the small egg which they met to hatch - by holding out to their view the ostrich egg of Confederation, which of course they will have to leave in the sand of uncertainty, where, we fear, it will be crushed by wild beasts at the approaching sessions of the respective Colonial Legislatures . . . . It is all very beautiful in theory to expatiate on the benefits of Colonial Federation . . . . This is all sublime and pleasing around a festive board; but of very little practical advantage to the people of our Island. We are part and parcel now of a greater nationality than can be scared up by even four millions of people for many long day, we enjoy the protection of the government of that nation. Railway communication will not likely ever come to our shores, and we have nothing worth sending to the top of Lake Superior; but as regards our lawyers and statesmen, we believe it would do some of them a vast of good to have an opportunity to know their own littleness, so far as this last consideration is concerned we go in heartily for a Confederation.


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