An Act was passed in 1867, for the purpose of confederating the two provinces of Canada with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and providing a federal constitution. Provision was also made for the admission into the Dominion of such other of the North American Colonies as might desire to come in. Under this clause Manitoba joined the confederation in 1870, British Columbia and Vancouver’s Island in 1871, and Prince Edward’s Island in 1873. The Hudson’s Bay Territory having been acquired in 1869, the whole of the British possessions in North America are now included in the Dominion, with the exception of Newfoundland.
Canadian Fisheries Question.
A long-standing dispute between Canada and the United States, dating from the treaty of peace of 1783, when American fishermen were given fishing rights on the coast of Canada. The Americans claimed that this right was inalienable, England that it was forfeited during the second war. In 1818 a modus vivendi was arrived at by which the Americans were allowed to fish outside the three mile limit, but friction still continued till 1871, when a treaty was signed at Washington giving the two countries reciprocal rights. Canada maintained that the right to fish off the American coast was of little value to her, and in 1877 a commission was appointed, which met at Halifax, to assess the damage she had sustained. The award of the commission was that Canada and Newfoundland should receive five and a half million dollars as compensation.
Canons of 1604.
The new canons, issued by Convocation in 1604, contained regulations for the conduct of public worship. They excommunicated all who attacked the Prayer Book, the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Supremacy of the Crown, as also those who seceded from the Church. They were, however, held by the Courts at Westminster to be binding only on the clergy.
Canons of 1640.
A series of seventeen canons, supplementary to the canons of 1604, issued by Convocation, and confirmed by the King, under the Great Seal. Parliament subsequently passed a measure giving them full canonical validity, but not the force of an Act of Parliament.
Canossa.
The castle of Matilda of Tuscany, where Gregory VII was staying when the Emperor Henry IV made a pilgrimage to Italy, in 1077, to make his submission to the Pope, who had excommunicated him. He was treated in the most humiliating fashion by Gregory, who left him for three days in the snow in the courtyard of the Castle before consenting to receive him. It is to this incident that Bismarck referred in the famous phrase, “Nach Canossa gehen wir nicht” (We are not going to Canossa), uttered in the Reichstag in 1872, during the Kulturkampf.