A story today from the fairly distant past in news terms. I touched on this more than a decade ago. It begins with a question, and I doubt that you will you know the answer. Name the only British Dominion in recorded history where the people voted their nation completely out of existence? The correct answer is Newfoundland.

We ended our status as a nation when, faced with economic ruin, we elected the British-born Frederick Alderdice and his government to lead us elsewhere. Lead us he did. In 1934 Alderdice took us to Commission of Government and we never did get back our status as a nation. It had been promised to us that we would return to Responsible Government. Instead, we were presented at the end with three choices: Responsible Government: Commission of Government; or Confederation with Canada. The rest, as they say, is history.

The more I learn about the events that surrounded the two referenda that took us to Confederation the less I like it. I have always been a staunch believer in Confederation, and I still am, but I see, as the years roll on, how we were directed. We went where Britain and Canada wanted us to go which is NOT to the United States which through its presence in World War Two was putting its “stamp” on us. It wasn’t illegal, but it was a conspiracy. On the other side of that ledger are the expressed thoughts of Joseph R. Smallwood who said words to the effect that conspiracies, openly arrived at, are the heart and soul of democracies.

You may remember that I wrote some years ago that sometimes there are events on which the course of history swings that we may not be much aware of. Sometimes these events do not even become public until long after they have happened. They leave behind them always the eternal question of history; what if? 

The event in question came to life through an article in the Vancouver Sun about the referendum that decided Newfoundland’s fate in 1948. It was the July referendum in which Confederation defeated Responsible Government by the narrowest of margins to carry us in the direction of Canada. It was the second referendum. The Sun reported that in 1948, BEFORE that deciding vote took place the British appointed Newfoundland Governor of the day, Gordon Macdonald, made a bold decision. MacDonald was very British and very much disliked. He represented “government from afar”. He represented the British Commission of Government. Here is the decision that MacDonald made that has only recently come to light. The governor asked then British Prime Minister Clement Atlee to send a naval contingent to Newfoundland to support the local constabulary in St. John’s in case of trouble if Confederation won the vote. The phrase that comes to mind is from the days of Canada’s FLQ crisis. It is “apprehended insurrection”.

His Honour, in 1948, was much concerned that a victory by the Confederate forces might bring violence to the streets of St. John’s. The city was of course a stronghold of support for Responsible Government. The Newfoundland “outports” were largely supportive of Confederation with Canada. Now, according to the documents uncovered in England British Prime Minister Clement Atlee, who had replaced Churchill just before the end of the Second World War, first felt inclined to grant the request from Governor Macdonald but Atlee changed his mind because his advisors told him the threat of violence in Newfoundland after a Confederate victory remained small at best and in fact in the months immediately after that deciding vote in the second referendum much of the bitterness of the once fearsome campaign had ebbed away. Violence never became a real consideration.

The uncovered documents go on to report that the request from Governor Macdonald to the British government was top secret because of the political implications of the matter becoming public. Now today is begged this intriguing question of history – What if?

Would discovery of a request by the ruling governor for a British military presence in Newfoundland to militarily back a Confederate win, PRIOR to the holding of that second referendum be ammunition enough for the forces backing Responsible Government to swing that most critical vote? Would the outrage of Newfoundlanders discovering, as the new found documents indicate, that the British had been asked specifically by the governor of the day to bring a warship to either Conception Bay or Placentia Bay with several hundred military people on board be enough to alter history? The plan was to keep them out of sight so to speak so as to not raise undue concern among the population; particularly the Responsible government supporters. Consider in 1948 that if, armed with the idea of a British warship in our waters, Responsible Government had been able to take advantage of that information and swing enough votes to carry the day.

This will always remain one of histories unanswered questions and was one of histories best kept secrets until now. The leaders of the Responsible Government movement went to their graves without knowing that in Newfoundland the nation the last governor Gordon Macdonald had asked the British government to consider backing up a possible Confederate win with military muscle. It was the “unseen hand “at work in public affairs.

You can contact Jim Furlong at jfurlong@ntv.ca