Yet if an Opposition had not existed, it would have
been necessary to create one in order to work the parliamentary
machine. The attempt to keep the coalition together did not long
succeed. On the eve of the first federal election the Ontario
Reformers in convention decided to oppose the Government, even
though it contained three of their former leaders. In the
contest, held in August and September, 1867, Macdonald triumphed
in every province except Nova Scotia but faced a growing
Opposition party. Under the virtual leadership of Alexander
Mackenzie, fragments of parties from the four provinces were
united into a single Liberal group. In a few years the majority
of the Liberal rank and file were back in the fold, and the
Liberal members in the Cabinet had become frankly Conservative.
Coalition had faded away.
Within six years after Confederation the whole northern half of
the continent had been absorbed by Canada. The four original
provinces comprised only one-tenth of the area of the present
Dominion, some 377,000 square miles as against 3,730,000 today.
The most easterly of the provinces, little Prince Edward Island,
had drawn back in 1865, content in isolation. Eight years later
this province entered the fold. Hard times and a glimpse of the
financial strength of the new federation had wrought a change of
heart.
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