Editing Newfoundland and Labrador (section)

===Commission government ===

==== The Great Depression and the return of colonial rule ====
[[File:Colonial riot 500.jpg|thumb|left|People in front of the [[Colonial Building]] protesting against economic conditions, 1932. In the next year, the government of Newfoundland collapsed, and the British government resumed direct control over Newfoundland.]]
Following the stock market crash in 1929, the international market for much of Newfoundland and Labrador's goods—saltfish, pulp paper and minerals—decreased dramatically. In 1930, the country earned $40 million from its exports; that number dropped to $23.3 million in 1933. The fishery suffered particularly heavy losses as [[Dried and salted cod|salted cod]] that sold for $8.90 a [[quintal]] in 1929 fetched only half that amount by 1932.<ref name=":3" /> With this precipitous loss of export income, the level of debt Newfoundland carried from the Great War and from construction of the [[Newfoundland Railway]] proved unsustainable. In 1931, the Dominion defaulted.<ref name=":3" /> Newfoundland survived with assistance from the United Kingdom and Canada but, in the summer of 1933, faced with unprecedented economic problems at home, Canada decided against any further support.

Following retrenchment in all the Dominion's major industries, the government laid off close to one third of its civil servants and cut the wages of those it retained. For the first time since the 1880s, malnutrition was facilitating the spread of [[Thiamine deficiency|beriberi]], [[tuberculosis]] and other diseases.<ref>{{cite web|last=Higgins|first=Jenny|date=2007|title=Great Depression – Impacts on the Working Class|url=https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/depression-impacts.php|access-date=January 25, 2022|website=heritage.nf.ca|archive-date=January 25, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125153442/https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/depression-impacts.php|url-status=live}}</ref>

The British had a stark choice: accept financial collapse in Newfoundland or pay the full cost of keeping the country solvent. The solution, accepted by the legislature in 1933, was to accept a de facto return to direct colonial rule.<ref name="collapse">{{cite web|url=http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/collapse_responsible_gov.html|title=Collapse of Responsible Government, 1929–1934|publisher=Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador|access-date=February 5, 2011|archive-date=December 20, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220171415/http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/collapse_responsible_gov.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In exchange for loan guarantees by the [[British Crown|Crown]] and a promise that self-government would in time be re-established, the legislature in St. John's voted itself out of existence.<ref name="Malone" />{{rp|8–10}}<ref>Peter Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 1929–1949 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University  Press, 1988), especially chapter 2</ref> On February 16, 1934, the [[Commission of Government]] was sworn in, ending 79 years of [[responsible government]].<ref name="collapse" /> The Commission consisted of seven persons appointed by the British government. For 15 years, no elections took place, and no legislature was convened.<ref name="commission">{{cite web|url=http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/commission_gov.html|title=The Commission of Government, 1934–1949|publisher=Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador|access-date=February 6, 2011|archive-date=December 20, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220171931/http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/commission_gov.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Between 1934 and 1939, the Commission of Government managed the situation but the underlying problem, world-wide depression, resisted solution. The dispirited state of the country is said to have been evident in "'the lack of cheering and of visible enthusiasm' in the crowds that came out to see King [[George VI]] and Queen Elizabeth during their brief visit in June 1939."<ref name=":9">{{cite web|last=Neary|first=Peter|title=The History of Newfoundland and Labrador during the Second World War {{!}} Dispatches {{!}} Learn {{!}} Canadian War Museum|url=https://www.warmuseum.ca/learn/dispatches/the-history-of-newfoundland-and-labrador-during-the-second-world-war/|access-date=January 25, 2022|language=en-US|archive-date=June 7, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190607175224/https://www.warmuseum.ca/learn/dispatches/the-history-of-newfoundland-and-labrador-during-the-second-world-war/|url-status=live}}</ref>

====Second World War====
The situation changed dramatically, after Newfoundland and Labrador, with no responsible government of its own, was automatically committed to war as a result of Britain's ultimatum to Germany in September 1939. Unlike in 1914–1918, when the Dominion government volunteered and financed a full expeditionary regiment, there would be no separate presence overseas and, by implication, no compulsory enlistment. Volunteers filled the ranks of Newfoundland units in both the Royal Artillery and the Royal Air Force, and of the largest single contingent of Newfoundlanders to go overseas, the [[Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit]]. As a result, and taking into account service in the Newfoundland Militia, and in the merchant marine, as in the First World War<ref name=":7" /> about 12,000 Newfoundlanders were at one time or another directly or indirectly involved in the war effort.<ref name=":9" />

In June 1940, following the defeat of France and the German occupation of most of Western Europe, the Commission of Government, with British approval, authorized Canadian forces to help defend Newfoundland's air bases for the duration of the war. Canada's military commitment greatly increased in 1941 when German submarines began to attack the large numbers of merchant ships in the north-west Atlantic. In addition to reinforcing the bomber squadron at [[Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador|Gander]], the Royal Canadian Air Force provided a further squadron of bombers that flew from a new airport Canada built at Torbay (the present St. John's airport). From November 1940, a new airbase at [[Gander International Airport|Gander]] became one of the so called "sally-ports of freedom" with U.S. manufactured aircraft flying in swarms to Britain.<ref name=":9" />

Already, in March 1941, United Kingdom conceded the United States, then still officially neutral, what were effectively U.S. sovereign base rights. The Americans chose properties at St. John's, where they established an army base ([[Pepperrell Air Force Base|Fort Pepperrell]]) and a dock facility; at [[Argentia|Argentia/Marquise]], where they built a naval air base and an army base ([[Naval Station Argentia|Fort McAndrew]]); and at [[Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador|Stephenville]], where they built a large airfield (Ernest Harmon Airbase). As allies after December 1941, the Americans were also accommodated at [[Torbay, Newfoundland and Labrador|Torbay]], [[Goose Bay (Newfoundland and Labrador)|Goose Bay]] and Gander.<ref name=":9" />

This garrisoning of Newfoundland had profound economic, political and social consequences. Enlistment for service abroad and the base building boom at home eliminated the chronic unemployment of the previous decades. By 1942, the country not only enjoyed full employment and could spend more on health, education and housing, it was making interest-free loans of Canadian dollars to the by-then hard-pressed British. At the same time, the presence of so many Canadians and Americans, complete with entertainment and consumer goods, promoted a taste for the more affluent consumerism that had been developing throughout North America.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Second World War, 1939–1945|url=https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/second-world-war.php|access-date=January 25, 2022|website=heritage.nf.ca|archive-date=January 25, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125151704/https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/second-world-war.php|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== The National Convention ====
When prosperity returned with the [[Second World War]], agitation began to end the Commission and reinstate responsible government.<ref>Gene Long, ''Suspended State: Newfoundland Before Canada'' (1999)</ref> Instead, the British government created the [[Newfoundland National Convention|National Convention]] in 1946. Chaired by Judge [[Cyril J. Fox]], the Convention consisted of 45 elected members from across the dominion and was formally tasked with advising on the future of Newfoundland.

Several motions were made by [[Joey Smallwood]] (a convention member who later served as the first provincial [[Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador|premier of Newfoundland]]<ref name=newtois>{{cite web |url=http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/national.html |title=The Newfoundland National Convention |publisher=Heritage.nf.ca |access-date=December 3, 2010 |archive-date=April 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140429044917/http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/national.html |url-status=live }}</ref>) to examine joining Canada by sending a delegation to Ottawa.<ref name=newtois/> The first motion was defeated, although the Convention later decided to send delegations to both London and Ottawa to explore alternatives.<ref>Joseph Roberts Smallwood, ''I chose Canada: The Memoirs of the Honourable Joseph R. "Joey" Smallwood'' (1973) p. 256</ref><ref>Richard Gwyn, ''Smallwood: The Unlikely Revolutionary'' (1972)</ref> In January 1948, the National Convention voted against adding the issue of Confederation to the referendum 29 to 16, but the British, who controlled the National Convention and the subsequent referendum, overruled this move.<ref name=Malone>{{cite book |last=Malone |first=Greg |title=Don't Tell the Newfoundlanders: The True Story of Newfoundland's Confederation with Canada |year=2012 |publisher=Alfred A Knopf Canada |location=Toronto |isbn=978-0-307-40133-5}}{{rp|145}}</ref> Those who supported Confederation were extremely disappointed with the recommendations of the National Convention and organized a petition, signed by more than 50,000 Newfoundlanders, demanding that Confederation with Canada be placed before the people in the upcoming referendum. As most historians agree, the British government keenly wanted Confederation on the ballot and ensured its inclusion.<ref>David MacKenzie, Inside the Atlantic Triangle: Canada and the Entrance of Newfoundland into Confederation, 1939–49 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 192</ref>