PRESENT STATUS OF THE COMPANY.
A great land Company--Fort Garry dismantled--The new
buildings--New _v._ Old--New life in the Company--Palmy days
are recalled--Governors of ability--The present distinguished
Governor--Vaster operations--Its eye not dimmed.
Relieved of the burden of government, the Hudson's Bay Company threw
itself heartily into the work of developing its resources. Mr. Donald A.
Smith, who had done so much to undermine the power of Riel, returned to
Manitoba as Chief Commissioner of the Company, and proceeded to manage
its affairs in the altered conditions of the country. Representing
enormous interests in the North-West, Mr. Smith entered the first local
legislature at Winnipeg, and soon after became for a time a member of
the Canadian House of Commons. One of the most important matters needing
attention was the land interests of the Company. The Company claimed
five hundred acres around Fort Garry. This great tract of land, covering
now one of the most important parts of the City of Winnipeg, was used
as a camping-ground, where the traders from the far west posts, even as
far as Edmonton, made their "corrals" and camped during their stay at
the capital. Some opposition was developed to this claim, but the block
of land was at length handed over to the Company, fifty acres being
reserved for public purposes.
The allotment of wild land to the Company of one-twentieth went on in
each township as it was surveyed, and though all this land is taxable,
yet it has become a great source of revenue to the Company. Important
sites and parcels of land all over the country have helped to swell its
resources.
The great matter of adapting its agencies to meet the changed
conditions of trade was a difficult thing. The methods of two
centuries could not be changed in a day. The greatest difficulty lay in
the officers and men remote from the important centres. It was reported
that in many of the posts no thorough method of book-keeping prevailed.
The dissatisfaction arising from the sale made by the Company in 1863,
and the uncertainty as to the deed poll, no doubt introduced an element
of fault-finding and discontent into the Company's business. Some of
the most trusted officers retired from the service. The resources of
the Company were, however, enormous, its credit being practically
unlimited, and this gave it a great advantage in competing with the
Canadian merchants coming to the country, the majority of whom had
little capital. Ten years after the transfer Fort Garry was sold, and
though it came back on the hands of the Company, yet _miserabile dictu_,
the fort had been dismantled, thrown down, and even the stone removed,
with the exception of the front gate, which still remains. This gate,
with a portion of ground about it, has been given by the Hudson's Bay
Company to the City of Winnipeg as a small historic park. Since the time
of sale, large warehouses have been erected, not filled, as were the old
shops, with bright coloured cloths, moccasins, and beads, fitted for the
Indian and native trade, but aiming at full departments after the model
of Maple and Shoolbred, of the mother city of London. These shops are
represented in the plate accompanying this description.
[Illustration: HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S STORES AND GENERAL OFFICES,
WINNIPEG.]
The trade thus modified has been under the direction of men of ability,
who succeeded Mr. Donald A. Smith, such as Messrs. Wrigley, Brydges,
and a number of able subordinates. The extension of trade has gone on
in many of the rising towns of the Canadian West, where the Hudson's
Bay Company was not before represented, such as Portage La Prairie,
Calgary, Lethbridge, Prince Albert, Vancouver, &c. In all these points
the Company's influence has been a very real and important one.
The methods of trade, now employed, require a skill and knowledge never
needed in the old fur-trading days. The present successful Commissioner,
C. C. Chipman, Esq., resident in Winnipeg, controls and directs
interests far greater than Sir George Simpson was called upon to deal
with. Present and Past presents a contrast between ceaseless competition
and a sleepy monopoly.
[Illustration: COMMISSIONER CHIPMAN (WINNIPEG).
Executive Officer of H.B. Co. in Canada.]
The portions of the country not reached, or likely to be reached by
settlement, have remained in possession of the Hudson's Bay Company
almost solely. The Canadian Government has negotiated treaties with the
Indians as far north as Lake Athabasca, leaving many of the Chipewyans
and Eskimos still to the entire management of the Company.
The impression among the officers of the Company is that under the
deed poll of 1871 they are not so well remunerated as under the former
régime. It is difficult to estimate the exact relation of the present
to the past, inasmuch as the opening up of the country, the improvement
of transportation facilities, and the cheapening of all agricultural
supplies has changed the relative value of money in the country. Under
this arrangement, which has been in force for twenty-four years,
the profits of the wintering partners are divided on the basis of
one-hundredth of a share. Of this an inspecting chief factor receives
three shares; a chief factor two and a half; a factor two; and a chief
trader one and a half shares. The average for the twenty-five years of
the one-hundredth share has been 213_l._ 12_s._ 2-1/2_d._ Since 1890 a
more liberal provision has been made for officers retiring, and since
that time an officer on withdrawing in good standing receives two years'
full pay and six years' half pay. Later years have seen a further
increase.
A visit to the Hudson's Bay House on the corner of Leadenhall and Lime
Streets, London, still gives one a sense of the presence of the old
Company. While in the New World great changes have taken place, and
the visitor is struck with the complete departure from the low-ceiling
store, with goods in disorder and confusion, with Metis smoking
"kinni-kinnik" till the atmosphere is opaque--all this to the palatial
buildings with the most perfect arrangements and greatest taste; yet
in London "the old order changeth" but slowly. It is true the old
building on Fenchurch Street, London, where "the old Lady" was said by
the Nor'-Westers to sit, was sold in 1859, and the proceeds divided
among the shareholders and officers for four years thereafter. But
the portraits of Prince Rupert, Sir George Simpson, and the copy of
the Company Charter were transferred bodily to the directors' room in
the building on Lime Street. The strong room contains the same rows of
minutes, the same dusty piles of documents, and the journals of bygone
years, but the business of a vast region is still managed there, and the
old gentlemen who control the Hudson's Bay Company affairs pass their
dividends as comfortably as in years gone by, with, in an occasional
year, some restless spirit stirring up the echoes, to be promptly
repressed and the current of events to go on as before.
Since 1871, however, it is easy to see that men of greater financial
ability have been at the head of the councils of the Hudson's Bay
Company, recalling the palmy days of the first operations of the
Company. After five years' service, Sir Edmund Head, the first Governor
under the new deed poll, gave way, to be followed for a year by the
distinguished politician and statesman, the Earl of Kimberley. For five
years thereafter, Sir Stafford Northcote, who held high Government
office in the service of the Empire, occupied this position. He
was followed for six years by one who has since gained a very high
reputation for financial ability, the Rt. Hon. G. J. Goschen. Eden
Colville, who seems to carry us back to the former generation--a man
of brisk and alert mind, and singularly free from the prejudices and
immobility of Governor Berens, the last of the barons of the old
régime--held office for three years after Mr. Goschen.
For the last ten years the veteran of kindly manner, warm heart, and
genial disposition, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, has occupied this
high place. The clerk, junior officer, and chief factor of thirty
hard years on the inhospitable shores of Hudson Bay and Labrador, the
Commissioner who, as Donald A. Smith, soothed the Riel rebellion, and
for years directed the reorganization of the Company's affairs at Fort
Garry and the whole North-West, the daring speculator who took hold,
with his friends, of the Minnesota and Manitoba Railway, and with Midas
touch turned the enterprise to gold, a projector and a builder of the
Canadian Pacific Railway, the patron of art and education, has worthily
filled the office of Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and with
much success reorganized its administration and directed its affairs.
The Company's operations are vaster than ever before. The greatest
mercantile enterprise of the Greater Canada west of Lake Superior; a
strong land Company, still keeping up its traditions and conducting a
large trade in furs; owning vessels and transportation facilities; able
to take large contracts; exercising a fatherly care over the Indian
tribes; the helper and assistant of the vast missionary organizations
scattered over Northern Canada, the Company since the transfer of
Rupert's Land to Canada has taken a new lease of life; its eye is not
dim, nor its natural force abated.