Cambridge Commonwealth
2 total works
In 1838 Lord Melbourne's Whig government in Britain sent the radical Lord Durham to Canada as Governor-General to deal with a colony in the aftermath of a rebellion. Durham's vanity and arrogance made him a poor choice for the post, and he resigned a few months later after the government had been forced to overrule him for exceeding his powers. After his return to Britain he wrote his Report on the Affairs of British North America - and its unauthorized publication in the Times caused a sensation. This report - the famous 'Durham Report' - has been seen as the starting point of the British tradition of colonial self-rule leading through the Statute of Westminster of 1931 to the independent self-governing Commonwealth of today.
Challenging the view that the provinces of British North America united between 1864 and 1867 in response to the internal and external challenges of the time, this book considers the British dimension. It argues that the origins of confederation must be sought in a vague consensus among opinion-formers in Britain that the provinces would one day unite.