Responsible Government League

The Responsible Government League was a political movement in the Dominion of Newfoundland.

The Responsible Government League of Newfoundland, led by Peter Cashin, was formed in February 1947 by anti-Confederation delegates to the Newfoundland National Convention on the future of the colony. It was one of several Anti-Confederation movements which suffered intermittent popularity between 1865 and 1948 as the issue of Confederation between the colonies of Newfoundland and Canada was debated.

The purpose of the RGL was to ensure that Newfoundland and Canada remain separate countries.

In the 19th century, various Anti-Confederates were strengthened in their resolve by outspoken figures such as Charles Fox Bennett who successfully championed Responsible Government's cause in an election on the confederation issue in 1869. Bennett was opposed to Confederation because he feared the Québécois: he thought that if Newfoundland joined in Confederation with Quebec, then the Canadian Parliament would be dominated by Canada West ( Quebec); he feared there would be a whole dynasty of French-Canadian statesmen who would centralize power in Ottawa and ignore the people of Newfoundland; he feared a National Unity Crisis within Canada and believed that Newfoundland would lose control of its natural resources to the new federal government. Both before and during the Confederation debates of the 1860s, there was a "Native Newfoundlanders" movement: The Newfoundland Natives' Society was formed in 1840 to lobby for more labour and employment rights in the forestry and fishery for Newfoundland residents. Also, songs such as "The Anti-Confederation Song" and "The Antis of Plate Cove" were popular at the time.

In 1869 the people of the Colony of Newfoundland voted in a General Election against Confederation with Canada. The Confederation debates were furious and sometimes ludicrous: Anti-Confederates charged Newfoundland children would be drafted into the Canadian Army and die to be left unburied in distant sandy, dry Canadian deserts. There was also vague, xenophobic, anti-French sentiment. Because Newfoundland did not join Canada in 1869, it would remain a separate political entity for a further four generations. During the 1890s the question of Confederation again arose but Canadian diplomats were cold to the idea.

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