BRITISH NORTH AMERICA BILL (Hansard, 22 March 1949)

§ VISCOUNT ADDISON
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time. In doing so, I would recall that this Bill, which is a landmark in the history of Newfoundland, received a Second Reading last week with the good will of all sides of the House. This historic Island for hundreds of years has been developed by people of our stock. In those early days it was the gateway to great undiscovered lands. Now, it is the neighbour of a great Federation derived from British and French stock which stretches for thousands of miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and which has become the home of a great and growing nation, with all the power that comes from the joining together of their vast Provinces. This Bill marks the fact that by their own wish, and with the good will of others, the citizens of Newfoundland are to join with the other Provinces of this great Federation, with all the rights of a great Province. It is, I think, a farseeing and wise decision that will fortify the strength of Newfoundland, that will extend the bounds of benefit and opportunity for all its citizens, and that will assure the liberties that are enshrined in this Bill for the people in Newfoundland in a wider and stronger association. I beg to move.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
My Lords, I am sure that all your Lordships will wish to be associated with the message of good will and Godspeed to the people of Newfoundland which has been so happily expressed by the noble Viscount the Leader of the House. Newfoundland has a long and brave history of which its people are rightly proud, and for which we in this country have often had cause to be grateful. All their past proclaims their future, and they will maintain their vigour and increase their strength in the great Dominion they are now about to join. And as the Commonwealth, with all its freedom and independence, draws—as I am sure it will—ever closer together in the face of common dangers and in the solution of common problems, the association of the people of the new Province of Newfoundland with the Old Country will be as close in reality and in affection as ever it has been in the past.

THE MARQUESS OF READING
My Lords, we on these Benches should not like this moment to pass without offering our earnest and cordial good wishes on the achievement of the purpose contained in this Bill. There have been few more striking developments in the last quarter of a century than the expansion and advance of Canada to the status of a Great Power; and any country, even with the long and honourable tradition of Newfoundland behind it, may well take the view that now voluntarily to accede as a Province to that great Dominion is a source alike of privilege and of pride.