Track 23 Research notes

• reasons why Newfoundland did not join Confederation until March 31, 1949
• Newfoundland delegates took part in the negotiations leading up to the British North America Act of 1867, but when the question was put to the Newfoundland electors in 1869 the “Confederates” were defeated by the “Anti-Confederates”
• the issue was revived during the financial crisis of the 1890s and again during WWI, but nothing came of it
• in 1948 a vote was taken, and they joined Confederation
• the anti-Confederation feeling sprang partly from the Newfoundlander’s pride in their history as Britain’s first overseas colony and their desire to remain independent, and partly from the self-interest of some St. John’s businessmen who feared that union would destroy their preferred position behind Newfoundland’s tariff wall
• the government had been financed almost entirely from customs duties which ran up the prices of everything the fishermen had to buy, and the argument that Confederation would bring “cheap tea and molasses” had considerable validity
• the tune of this song is also used for another Newfoundland ditty called “Concerning One Summer in Bonay I Spent”
• another song in a similar vein, “The ‘Antis’ of Plate Cove”, describes the battles and high feelings that accompanied the 1869 election
• p.28-29, Fowke, Edith Fulton and Richard Johnston, eds. Folk Songs of Canada. Waterloo, Ontario: Waterloo Music Company Limited, 1954.