Connections: Newfoundland's Pre-Confederation Links with Canada and the World

Melvin Baker is an archivist and historian at Memorial University of
Newfoundland, and the co-editor of Dictionary of Newfoundland and
Labrador Biography.

Malcolm MacLeod is a former professor of history at Memorial University.
Connections comprises 17 articles (15 of which were previously
published) he has written since 1979 on the subject of Newfoundland and
Canada’s social, economic, and political relations before Newfoundland
joined the Canadian Confederation in 1949. Topics covered include
Canadian help in establishing a system of lighthouses to aid Canadian
shipping passing by Newfoundland, subsidies for the Newfoundland-owned
ferry service on the Cabot Strait between the two counties, educational
links, immigration policy, and Canadian naval service in Newfoundland
during World War II.

MacLeod’s central argument is that Newfoundland, despite being
outside the Canadian federation, was “fully and intimately linked with
the Maritimes,” and that Newfoundland history should be studied as an
integral part of the overall history of the Maritime Provinces. MacLeod,
a Nova Scotia native, acknowledges that by the 1940s Canada and
Newfoundland still had “two identities” but identities that were
“starting to blur together.” Connections does not show what the
Canadian or Newfoundland identities were or explain why Newfoundlanders
chose so determinately to remain independent of Canada until the July
1948 referendum that gave Canada the nod by a narrow margin. Before
1949, Newfoundland had an independent presence on the international
stage and, along with Canada, was represented at the Paris Peace
Conference in 1919 as part of the British Empire delegation. That
political independence makes Newfoundland a different political entity
from the Maritimes.