Each province had its own constitution, its tariff, postage laws, and currency. It promoted its own interests, regardless of the existence of its British neighbours. Differences arose, says one writer, between their codes of law, their public institutions, and their commercial regulations.[2] Provincial misunderstandings, that should have been avoided, seriously retarded the building of the Inter-colonial Railway. 'The very currencies differ,' said Lord Carnarvon in the House of Lords. 'In Canada the pound or the dollar are legal tender. In Nova Scotia, the Peruvian, Mexican, Columbian dollars are all legal; in New Brunswick, British and American coins are recognized by law, though I believe that the shilling is taken at twenty-four cents, which is less than its value; in Newfoundland, {14} Peruvian, Mexican, Columbian, old Spanish dollars, are all equally legal; whilst in Prince Edward's Island the complexity of currencies and of their relative value is even greater.' When the Reciprocity Treaty was negotiated at Washington in 1854, Nova Scotia felt, with some reason, that she had not been adequately consulted in the granting to foreign fishermen of her inshore fisheries. In a word, the chief political forces were centrifugal, not centripetal. All the jealousy, the factious spirit, and the prejudice, which petty local sovereignties are bound to engender, flourished apace; and the general effect was to develop what European statesmen of a certain period termed Particularism. The marvel is not that federation lagged, but that men with vision and courage, forced to view these depressing conditions at close range, were able to keep the idea alive.