_The Select Committee, on Hudson's Bay Affairs, of_
1857.
This Committee was appointed "to consider the state of those British
possessions in North America which are under the administration of the
Hudson's Bay Company, or over which they possess a licence to trade."
Lord John Russell, Mr. Gladstone, the present Lord Derby, Mr. Roebuck,
Mr. Labouchere, Mr. Lowe, and Mr. Edward Ellice, were of the nineteen
members of which the Committee originally consisted. Later on, the
names of Mr. Alexander Matheson and Viscount Goderich were substituted
for those of Mr. Adderley and Mr. Bell; and Mr. Christy was added to
the Committee. The evidence before the Committee much resembled that
taken by the Committee of 1749. There were the same disaffected, and
discharged, officials; the same disappointed merchants and rivals; the
same desire, in varied quarters, as before, to depreciate and despoil a
somewhat prosperous undertaking. The rival views were those of the
majority of the Committee, on the one hand, and of Mr. Gladstone, on
the other. The claims of Canada to annex territory useful, in her
opinion, to her inhabitants, was solidly urged. But the Honorable John
Ross, then President of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, who was the
first witness examined, said, "It is complained that the Hudson's Bay
Company occupy that territory and prevent the extension of settlement
and civilization in that part of the Continent of America. I do not
think they ought to be permitted to do that; but I think it would be a
very great calamity if their control and power in that part of America
were entirely to cease. My reason for forming that opinion is this:
during all the time that I have been able to observe their proceedings
there, there has been peace within the whole territory. The operations
of the Company seem to have been carried on, at all events, in such a
way as to prevent the Indian tribes within their borders from molesting
the Canadian frontier; while, on the other hand, those who have turned
their attention to that quarter of the world must have seen that, from
Oregon to Florida, for these last thirty years or more, there has been
a constant Indian war going on between the natives of American
territory, on the one side, and the Indian tribes on the other. Now, I
fear very much that if the occupation of the Hudson's Bay Company, in
what is called the Hudson's Bay territory, were to cease, our fate in
Canada might be just as it is with Americans in the border settlements
of their territory."
Mr. Ross advocated a railway to the Pacific, and he showed good
practical reasons for it. Failing a railway, he claimed a "good, broad
open road." On the question of renewed competition in the fur trade, he
added, "I believe there are certain gentlemen at Toronto very anxious
to get up a second North-West Company, and I dare say it would result
in something like the same difficulties which the last North-West
Company created. I should be sorry to see them succeed. I think it
would do a great deal of harm, creating further difficulties in Canada,
which I do not desire to see created."
"Certain gentlemen at Toronto" have ever been ready to despoil any old
and successful undertaking.
Mr. Gladstone's resolutions, as proposed at the end of the evidence,
were negatived by the casting vote of the chairman, Mr. Labouchere, the
numbers being 7 and 7. Mr. Gladstone proposed that the country capable
of colonization should be withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the
Hudson's Bay Company; while the country incapable of colonization
should remain under that jurisdiction. And, having thus disposed of any
chartered, or other, rights of the Company, his last, or 10th,
resolution, said, "That inasmuch as the Company has tendered
concessions which may prove sufficient to meet the necessities of the
case, the Committee has come to no decision upon the question how far
it may be, as some think, just and even necessary, or on the other
hand, unwise or even unjust, to raise any judicial issue with the view
of ascertaining the legal rights of the Company."
The Committee's report recommended that the Red River and Saskatchewan
districts of the Hudson's Bay Company might be "ceded to Canada on
equitable principles," the details being left to her Majesty's
Government. The Committee advised the termination of the government of
Vancouver's Island by the Hudson's Bay Company; a recommendation
followed, a year later, by the establishment of a Crown Colony. But
they strongly advised, in the interests of law and order, and of the
Indian population, as well as for the preservation of the fur trade,
that the Hudson's Bay Company "should continue to enjoy the privileges
of exclusive trade which they now possess."