Anti-Confederation Song (I)

DESCRIPTION: Newfoundland defiantly rejects union with the "Canadian Wolf." The promises made by the confederation are listed and rejected. "Would you barter the rights that your fathers have won... For a few thousand dollars of Canadian gold."
AUTHOR: Charles Fox Bennett (1793-1883) ? (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1869 (Bennett campaign, according to Hiscock)
KEYWORDS: Canada patriotic political
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1867 - Canadian Act of Confederation
1869 - Newfoundland electors refuse to join the Canadian Confederation
1949 - Newfoundland unites with Canada
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Fowke/Johnston-FolkSongsOfCanada, pp. 28-29, "Anti-Confederation Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke/MacMillan-PenguinBookOfCanadianFolkSongs 7, "An Anti-Confederation Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Doyle-OldTimeSongsAndPoetryOfNewfoundland, "Anti-Confederation Song" (1 text, 1 tune): p. 69 in the 2nd edition; p. 64 in the 4th; p. 55 in the 5th
Blondahl-NewfoundlandersSing, p. 42, "The Anti-Confederation Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke/Mills/Blume-CanadasStoryInSong, pp. 105-107, "An Anti-Confederation Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST FJ028 (Partial)
Roud #4518
RECORDINGS:
Omar Blondahl, "An 1861 Anti Confederation Song" (on NFOBlondahl04)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The 'Antis' of Plate Cove" (subject) and notes there
cf. "Anti-Confederation Song (II)" (subject of Canadian Confederation, as it was in 1949)
NOTES [1269 words]: According to Philip Hiscock's notes to this song in Eric West, Sing Around This One: Songs of Newfoundland & Labrador Vol. 2, Vinland Music, 1997, p. 54, this is suspected of having been written by Charles Fox Bennett, and Bennett "certainly" used it in 1869 during the unsuccessful campaign for confederation with Canada. Hiscock adds that the slogan "Come near at your peril, Canadian wolf" "has been emblematic for Newfoundland nationalists for over a century." Indeed, Chadwick, p. 19, quotes this song as the epigraph to his chapter on Confederation, and Hallowell, p. 140, also cites the "Canadian wolf" verse in his discussion of how Nova Scotia and Newfoundland responded to the 1927 August gale.
"Confederation" was the proposal for Newfoundland to join the newly-organized nation of Canada.
The proposal to join Canada had been negotiated, unofficially, by a newspaper editor, Ambrose Shea, and F. B. T. Carter, and the details were published by Shea in the Newfoundlander in late 1864 (O'Flaherty, p. 98). O'Flaherty, p. 99, explains the deal: Canada "was to assume the 'Debts and Liabilities' of each province. Newfoundland... was to receive compensation for having a lower per capita public debt than other provinces. Each provice was to get an annual grant of eighty cents 'per head' for giving up 'the power of taation' (though the right to impose 'direct taxation' was to be regained by them) the Newfoundland population being estimated at 130,000. And for surrendering to the general government 'all its rights' in mines and minerals and 'all' the ungranted and unoccupied Crown lands, an extraordinary concession, Newfoundland was to get $150,000 per annum.
"A few days after the resolutions appeared in print, C. F. Bennett challenged the Newfoundlander to give reasons for supporting them."
DictNewfLabrador, pp. 19-20, gives a fairly long biography of Bennett, who was born in Shaftesbury, England, in 1793 and came to Newfoundland as a boy. By 1827, he was establishing businesses which eventually included a mill, foundry, brewery, shipyard, and bank; he was one of the most important businessmen in the island. At a time when few in Newfoundland made any attempts to expand the economy, he was one of the few who tried to improve his properties (Hiller/Neary, p. 77). But he seems to have been an instinctive arch-conservative. Appointed to various legislative bodies, DictNewfLabrador, and O'Flaherty, p. 59, report that he had opposed Responsible Government (full home rule) in 1855, and apparently had his mill set on fire as a result. It didn't silence him permanently. When, in the 1860s, the proposal arose for Newfoundland to join Canada, he came back to oppose the idea, founding an anti-Confederation party in 1869. When the "Antis" won 21 of 30 seats in the House of Assembly, he became Prime Minister in 1870 despite being 76 years old. His administration, despite his conservative notions, was regarded as "able and progressive," but fell after an election in 1873, and Bennett gave up politics in the mid-1870s.
O'Flaherty, pp. 59-60, says that to the legislators of his time "he would have seemed an old hand with, perhaps, bizarre and bigoted views"; he was opposed to anything which even hinted at allowing Catholics (who made up just less than half the population of the province) to gain control of the government. His arguments, according to OFlaherty, p. 101, were that Newfoundland had limited agricultural potential (true), had "rich resources in our fisheries and, I believe, in our minerals" (the former true, the latter less so, and the nation would eventually destroy the fish supply by over-harvesting it), did not need military works (probably true), and didn't need railways or canals or the like (dubious, although the colony never made them economically viable). His real argument, though, seems to have been pure nativism -- he didn't want to cede any control.
He seems to have been rather a rabble-rouser; O'Flaherty, p. 99, reports on the vicious way he and Shea started attacking each other (Shea not only called Bennett "stupid" but even picked on the fact that he dropped his h's!). Chadwick, p. 25, reports, "Playing on Irish national sentiment in the outports and on the memories of the earlier French invasions, which in turn awakened resentment against Quebec, Bennett was able to paint a horrifying picture of the fate that would befall Newfoundland were she ever to link her destinies of the mainland. Thousands of illiterate voters were warned that their children would be used as gun wads for Canadian cannon; that they themselves would be conscripted and that 'their bones would bleach on the desert sands [sic.] of Canada'. The old bogey of taxation was of course well to the fore."
The irony is that Newfoundland was very poor, and was actually promised subsidies in the Confederation deal. Big ones (Chadwick, p. 24) -- it appears to me that it was over a dollar for every man, woman, and child in Newfoundland. Which may not sound like much, but this was at a time when many entire families lived on less than $20 per year. (As late as 1900, the average Newfoundland income for a typical family -- 5.1 people -- was just $200; O'Flaherty, p. 214.)
Hiller/Neary, p. 79, suggests that Confederation still might have passed if Premier Carter had held an election on the topic at the right time. The legislature had passed it (17-7 in the lower house, unanimously in the upper; O'Flaherty, p. 108). But Carter was not like most Newfoundland politicians; he truly tried to govern for all -- e.g. he built a cabinet that included both Protestants and Catholics (O'Flaherty, p. 103; on p. 104 he calls Carter "a cautious, plain-speaking, decen man... his main defect, perhaps, being his desire not to lead his country at all but to sell out to Canada). In a fit of honesty extraordinarily rare in Newfoundland politics, refused to play such games, and that, plus good results from the fishery that helped relieve economic distress, doomed the campaign.
O'Flaherty, p. 110, concludes, "As the months passed another factor convinced voters to shun union. The cod harvest in Labrador and elsewhere was bountiful; markets were favourable. Bennett was not just a brilliant campaigner, he was lucky.... The hard times were over, perhaps. In the great lottery of the Newfoundland fishery, the fishermen of 1869 won, and the anti-s in November won with them, by a margin in seats of 21-9. Carter sneaked through in Burin by just five votes" -- and of course his coalition was booted. Shea was actually driven from his constituency by an angry mob. O'Flaherty concludes on p. 111, "Bennett's reappearance on the political scene is a reminder of the power of the individual as a force in history"; without him, Confederation might have passed. And yet, he would prove unable to manage the politics of office and survived only one term as leader of the Newfoundland government.
After that term, Carter came back and headed a new government, then called a snap election after the 1874 term. In that election, Bennett's success was mostly confined to Catholic districts (O'Flaherty, p. 122), indicating that he had managed to re-inflame some of the old partisanship but that he had not managed to show that he was the man to deal with it. He was both the creator and the creation of the anti-confederation movement, and with that issue permanently resolved, there was no real place for him.
For more about this issue, see "The 'Antis" of Plate Cove." The story of how Newfoundland finally joined Canada is covered in "Anti-Confederation Song (II)." - RBW
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