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Nova Scotia Legislative Assembly, 24 April 1867, Nova Scotia Confederation with Canada.

DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS 150
[...]
UNION ACT.
Hon. PROV. SEC. laid on the table a copy of the Act for a Union of the British North American Colonies, as it passed the Imperial Parliament, there having been some slight verbal alterations from the copy previously submitted.
Mr. MILLER enquired whether some clauses had not been added in the House of Commons.
Hon. PROV. SEC. said that as the clauses relating to the monetary arrangements had to be inserted by the Commons, they were printed in red ink in the bill introduced in the House of Lords.
Mr. MILLER asked whether it was the intention of the Government to have any copies of the bill printed for circulation throughout the country. It contained the constitution under which we would hereafter live, and it was most desirable that it should be distributed in some durable shape; and this would have the effect of preventing the misrepresentations which were being made from one end of the country to the other.
Mr. S. CAMPBELL remarked that the Act had been already published in the newspapers.
Mr. MILLER replied that in that form the bill could not be preserved, and it was not probable that fifty persons in the country could put their hands upon a copy.
Hon. PRO. SEC. said it was of the highest importance that correct information on the subject should be widely circulated. Newspaper publications were so ephemeral that when in one issue of a journal published by an hon. member opposite, he saw a statement glaringly inconsistent with the one that preceded it, he found difficulty in making an accurate comparison. The Act would be placed in the hands of the public printer for publication in the Journals of the House, and at the same time a number of extra copies could be procured without much additional expense.
Mr. ANNAND said he did not object to the publication as the information which the bill would give was very valuable, but he would suggest that as the Government had been making free with the public monies in circulating a recently issued pamphlet on the benefits of Confederation, an equal sum should be placed at the disposal of the opposition for the purpose of distributing a reply to that production.
Hon. PROV. SEC. replied that the proposition would receive a favorable consideration whenever a document of equal value and containing an equal amount of accurate and reliable information was produced.
Mr. KAULBACK thought that the recent pamphlet of Mr. Howe on the Organization of the Empire should be published. It had been printed in the paper of the hon. member for E. Halifax, and had been endorsed by that gentleman as the scheme propounded by him and his colleagues, and placed before the people of England. That production was considered utterly fruitless and futile by those whom it was intended to influence, but it was useful as showing what the scheme of the opposition was. Those gentlemen proposed that the question should be settled, not by the people them OF THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY. 151 selves, as they recently contended, but by their representatives. Attempts were being made to frighten people by the idea that they would be drafted for military service in Canada, but that scheme proposed that Nova Scotians should be taxed to an unlimited extent, and be liable to be drafted away to any part of the world. That was the scheme of these gentlemen—they admitted that a change was necessary, and they were willing that it should be made by the people's representatives with the arbitrament of the Imperial Parliament.
Mr. COFFIN said that the hon. member must fancy himself stumping the County of Lunenburg .
Hon. Mr. McFARLANE, from the committee on Mines and Minerals, introduced a bill to amend the present law relating to mines, one of its objects being to prevent pilfering at the gold mines.
The house adjourned.

Source:

Nova Scotia. The Debates and Proceedings of the House of Assembly. Halifax: Croshill and Bourinot, 1864-1867. Digitized by Canadiana.

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Selection of input documents and completion of metadata: Dave Lang.

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