Document Information

Date: 1865-08-19
By: Montreal Witness
Citation: “The Hudson Bay and North West Territory”, Montreal Witness (19 August, 1865)
Other formats: TBA

THE HUDSON BAY AND NORTH WEST TERRITORY.

The policy of the Government in desiring to make the acquisition of all the Hudson’s Bay Company’s territories east of the Rocky Mountains in addition to those of the North west is not very intelligible. The delegates state that they “proposed to the Imperial Ministers that the whole British territory east of the Rocky Mountains and north of the American or Canadian lines should be made over to Canada, subject to such rights as the Hudson’s Bay Company might be able to establish; and that the compensation (if any should be found to be due) should be met by a loan guaranteed by Great Britain.” Of this territory a large proportion, in the north and north east, is unfit for any purpose of settlement, and from the high latitude in which it is situated must always continue to be so. Another portion—that of the North west—can be made to minister to the wants of civilized life. The worthless portion, for purposes of settlement, belongs to the Hudson’s Bay Company; it having been conveyed to their predecessors by one of the many charters by which Charles II lavished vast regions upon court favorites and dependents. We have previously been offered the North west Territory—the only valuable portion of the region that stretches from the Labrador coast to the Rocky Mountains—which does not belong to the company, is not included in their charter, and is only held by them under a temporary lease; and we have refused it. In informing the House of Commons that this offer had been made, Sir E. B. Lytton, the Colonial Secretary, said: “Eastward of the Rocky Mountains, we are invited to see in the settlement of the Red River, the nucleus of a new Colony, a rampart against any hostile invaders from the American frontier, and an essential arch, as it were, of that great viaduct by which we hope one day to connect the harbors of Vancouver with the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This is the district offered to Canada; and I think my honorable and learned friend has good reason to presume that Canada will decline the task of forming it into a Colony at her own responsibility and charge.” This anticipation was verified: Canada did refuse. The offer embraced only the territory of the North west, the proprietorship of which was in the Imperial Government. If we accepted it now, on reconsideration, there might be some reason in the determination; but to tack to it the Hudson’s Bay territory proper, which is utterly worthless for settlement, and which if acquired at all must be bought and paid for, is a proceeding for which we can imagine no possible ground of justification. The territory of the company is fit for nothing but a preserve for wild animals and never can be otherwise; and experience shows that where the fur trade is thrown open, it leads to the destruction both of the previous fur-bearing animals and of the Indians by whom the furs are ordinarily obtained. Let us acquire the North west territory, or leave it to be acquired by the Confederation; but let us leave the Hudson’s Bay Company to make what it can of a territory that we could put to no possible use; the possession of which would lead to Indian wars, famine, and finally the destruction of the Indians by that intemperance, and the diseases which follow in its train, which ever accompanies the free and constant contact with them of competing traders of the white race.—Toronto Leader.