British Columbiaˇ¦s entry into Confederation in 1871
...the debts needed to be combined together, the colonies would needed to help B.C. to pay their debt as if these debts were their own. Besides, British Columbia had the problem of low population. With this low population, B.C. seemed not to be able to get away with heavy debts any time soon. ˇ§confederating this colony with Canada, may relieve the mother country from the trouble and expenseˇK but it cannot free us from our long enduring depression, owing to the lack of population.ˇ¨ Dr. J.D. Helmcken suggested the landscape of British Columbia was not a sufficient region as it is located on the most west side from the other colonies where it would have no chance of getting contact with the others. ˇ§ ˇK it is absurd to attempt to ally ourselves with a people 3,000 miles away,ˇK, with no communication ˇK, and no telegraphic communication.ˇ¨ The last disadvantage of staying independent for B.C. was that investors were not likely to invest in B.C. due to its low population and poor capital. Without the ˇ§two chief requisites for development,ˇ¨ the absent of good population to stimulate the market, the flows of money in the capital system automatically slow down the market of goods. Therefore, with a poor capital and low population, foreign investors would not spend valuable time in B.C.ˇ¦s market. This first option was not an appropriate selection from the choice of the options provided that British Columbia could try the second way and observe whether combining with the United States be any better. The second option opened to British Columbia was combining with the United States. The problem with this was there was a resistant in accepting B.C. into the United States, ˇ§support for annexation to the United States was confined largely to the American inhabitants,ˇ¨ where anti-annexation inhabitants of the German and Jewish merchants send a letter with forty-three signatures to disallow the annexation. Not only the Americans disagreed B.C. combining with the United States, but also Hon. Alexander Galt. who had the belief that United States should neither heading west nor taking British Columbia as part of them. He, who talked on the point of view of the Canada East and British Columbia, said that they must face the United States and ˇ§This country cannot be surrounded by the United StatesˇXwe are gone if we allow itˇXwe should be in their hand when they chose to shut it.ˇ¨ The idea of not letting the United States occupied too many area of land was to take their force down as a way to protect their own safety, the colonies understood that in order to control the expansion of the United States in either the westward or upward direction, they must join together to combine their small power in order to protect their own safety and goods. The third option opened to British Columbia was joining the confederation. There were some positive wordings on the confederation of B.C. with the other colonies while also some negative ones. From the negative responses of the idea of long-term debts, lack of population, and weak capital, the best alternative was to get into confederation with the other colonies to decrease the level of difficulty in getting through this process alone. With the confederation, British Columbia had the chanc...