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right to give it, whether the dimensions of his gift were identical with those since claimed for it, whether the gift itself was not revoked by subsequent legislation,-are points upon which much ingenious argument has been already wasted. But however these questions may be answered, we agree with Sir Richard Bethell and Sir Henry Keating, that for the Crown to impeach its own act after a prescription of nearly 200 years,as some of the Company's ultra-liberal opponents are anxious it should do,-would be a stretch of prerogative alike unprecedented and unwarrantable. Nor shall we enter into the many and sometimes contradictory charges which have been brought against the Company's administration. That they have carried out with "consummate skill and unwavering devotion" the object for which they were incorporated, is not a very serious accusation to bring against a trading corporation.

But absolution for the past does not imply authorisation for future; and the position of the Hudson's Bay Company has been challenged of late years on other and more valid grounds. To breed men is a nobler and more profitable occupation than to breed beavers, and if there is any portion of the territory adapted for colonisation, it ought undoubtedly to be devoted to that purpose. In such a work as this, the Company is not fitted, either by character or inclination, to take a part. Its directors have been too long in the habit of looking upon their dominions as a vast preserve of those fur-bearing animals to whose existence the near neighbourhood of civilised man is absolutely fatal, to be able to regard them in any other light. Nor, to do them justice, have they shown themselves at all disposed to dispute this conclusion. They have no wish to constitute themselves a board of Emigration Commissioners; and if the possibility of a successful colonisation of any considerable portion of the interior can once be demonstrated, we do not anticipate any opposition on their part to its transfer, on equitable terms, into other hands. We think that Mr. Hind and Captain Palliser have enabled us to form a conclusion upon this point, and we shall now proceed to lay the results of their investigation before our readers.

It is to Mr. Hind's account of his visit to the Red River that we shall first turn, since here, though in a small way and under very exceptional circumstances, the experiment of colonisation has been tried, by British subjects, for nearly half a century.

The settlement stands on both banks of the Red River, for about fifty miles above its junction with Lake Winipeg. The stream is from 200 to 350 feet broad, and flows with an even current, broken by no obstacles of importance, in a trench from thirty to forty feet in depth, which it has cut for itself, in the course of ages, through the stiff clay of the prairie. The preci

pitous banks are fringed in places with forest-trees or underwood, and beyond them is "a vast ocean of prairie, whose horizon or intermediate surface is rarely broken by small islands of poplar or willow, and whose long, rank, and luxuriant grasses show every where a uniform distribution, and indicate the character of the soil they cover so profusely." The aspect of the settlement as the traveller approaches it from Lake Winipeg is thus described by Mr. Hind:

Aspen woods continue to shut out the view until we arrive within a mile or two of Water-Mill Creek, when a scene opens upon the right which discloses, on the one hand, the white houses and cottages of the inhabitants, with their barns, haystacks, and cattle-yards, grouped at short distances from one another, and stretching away in a thin vanishing line to the south; while, on the other hand, a boundless, treeless ocean of grass, seemingly a perfect level, meets the horizon on the west. The same kind of scenery-varied only, on the left hand, as the road approaches or recedes from the farm-houses on the river banks, or passes near neat and substantial churches, which at almost regular distances intervene-prevails without interruption until within four or five miles of Fort Garry. Here, stretching away until lost in the western horizon, the belts of wood on the banks of the Assiniboine rise above the general level, while from the Assiniboine towards the north, again, is an uninterrupted expanse of long waving prairie-grass, sprinkled with herds of cattle, and in the fall of the year with clusters of stacks of hay. This is the ordinary aspect of the country comprising that portion of the Red-River settlement which lies between Water-Mill Creek and Fort Garry. Remove the farm-houses and churches, replacing them on the river-banks by forest-trees of the largest growth, and the country between Fort Garry and the forty-ninth parallel, as seen along the road to Pembina, a distance of seventy miles, is continually reproduced in its ordinary aspect of sameness and immensity." Hind's Narrative, vol. i. p. 133.

In the

The winter cold at the Red River is very severe. winter of 1855-56 the mean temperature was 26° below that of Toronto in West Canada. But in spring and autumn the temperatures of the two places are about equal, and in summer there is a slight advantage on the side of the Red River. The summer rain-fall at the Red River is very much greater than at Toronto: in the hot months of 1855 there was a difference of eighteen inches, and it is in this combination of heat and moisture that we must seek for an explanation of the extraordinary richness of the prairie vegetation. But the character of the climate may be best tested by its effect upon the crops. Wheat ripens, in favourable years, in three months from the day of sowing. On the most moderate estimate, the ordinary yield is forty bushels to the acre on new land, and thirty bushels over the whole district; while, according to another authority, the returns often

exceed sixty bushels to the acre; and if the average crop is less than forty bushels, it is considered a bad harvest. Indian corn is sometimes injured by early frosts, but this is owing to its growth being retarded by the superabundant moisture of the prairie land, and would be remedied by the simplest kind of draining. Even without this, there are early varieties which, it seems, would always ripen. Potatoes and other roots, of large size and excellent quality, grow abundantly. The gardens contain asparagus, cauliflowers, brocoli, cabbages, beans, celery, beet, in fact all the ordinary vegetables of Canada; and melons ripen freely in the open air. The soil is well suited for flax and hemp; and at one time, when the Hudson's Bay Company offered premiums for their cultivation, they were grown to a considerable extent.

It must be admitted, however, that the average standard of comfort, industry, and production which prevails throughout the settlement is very inferior to what we might justly expect with these advantages. Many, if not most, of the farms are ill cultivated: weeds abound in the corn-fields; manure is allowed to accumulate in front of the stables and cattle-sheds until it is convenient to throw it into the river, or until the spring floods carry it away; the sheep are decreasing in numbers, and the cattle in quality; in short, the whole aspect of the settlement indicates that agriculture is not thought worthy of the undivided attention of the settlers, that the farm is only cared for in the intervals of hunting or trapping. This state of things is clearly not to be traced to any unkindness of soil or climate. We have seen how liberally the earth repays the labour bestowed upon its cultivation. The true cause of these shortcomings must be looked for in the character of the population. From the census of 1856 it appears, that while the population had increased in the course of seven years from 5291 to 6523, there was a decrease in the European and Canadian element to the extent of 113 families, against an increase of the native or half-breed element to the extent of 132 families. The half-breeds have many good qualities. They are brave, hardy, courteous, and hospitable, and their organisation in the hunting-field displays, as we have seen, considerable powers of combination and selfgovernment. But unfortunately these savage virtues are alloyed with equally savage vices. They are improvident, indolent, given to spend their whole substance in dress and personal adornment, and altogether averse from the restraints of settled labour. They are passionately fond of gambling, and they will often give all they are worth for a gay cariole or a handsome horse. A great part of their time is taken up by the summer and autumn hunts, which yearly entail a longer absence from home

as the buffalo wanders farther west; and the portion which is spent in the settlement proves so tedious, that many of them camp out all the winter, and hunt simply for amusement. Nor are they open to the great incentive to industry,-the love of riches. When once they have secured a subsistence, there is little inducement to labour left. There is no demand for the surplus produce of their farms within the limits of the settlement, and no means of transport to more distant markets; so the half-breed practice is to grow wheat enough in one year to last them for two or three, and to allow the land to lie fallow in the mean time.

An infusion of fresh blood seems to be the only cure for these evils; and, at first sight, the Red River would seem to have a good many attractions to offer to the emigrant. The climate though cold is healthy; the price of land within the actual limits of the settlement is only 7s. 6d. an acre; and at a distance of but a few miles there are hundreds of thousands of acres, equally fertile with those already under cultivation, which may be had by the first occupant. Nor does the new-comer leave behind him all the advantages of education and religion. The Anglican and Roman Churches each maintain a staff of clergy, with a bishop at their head, and there is a Presbyterian church and minister besides. There are parochial schools attached to the several churches, in which instruction is given in history, geography, grammar, and arithmetic; and there are also two middle schools, in which Latin and mathematics are taught; a collegiate school with scholarships attached; and two schools for young ladies, one under the superintendence of the Bishop of Rupert's Land, the other connected with a Roman Catholic convent. But in spite of advantages so much greater than can be offered by any new colony, the foreign element in the settlement grows smaller every day. It is not merely the distance of the Red River from England that makes it so uninviting a home for our surplus population. Lands more remote have been colonised in a tenth of the time which the settlement has already been in existence. But the 500 miles of wilderness which intervene between the emigrant and the last outpost of civilised life are more than an obstacle to be surmounted before he reaches the scene of his new life. They are a barrier interposed between him and every effort to dispose of the produce of his toil. A new settlement must hold out some greater inducement than a mere promise of subsistence before it will command the labour which it needs for the development of its resources. But even that moderate wealth which should be open to the fair ambition of every settler is tenfold more difficult to gain, and loses half its value when gained, if the difficulty of exchange

makes it almost wholly wealth in kind. The wants of the Red River are pretty fairly summed up by a settler in his farewell speech to Mr. Hind.

"Look at that prairie; 10,000 head of cattle might feed and fatten there for nothing. If I found it worth my while, I could enclose 50, 100, or 500 acres ; and from every acre get thirty-six to forty bushels

of wheat, year after year. I could grow Indian corn, barley, oats, flax, hemp, hops, turnips, tobacco,-any thing you wish, and to any amount; but what would be the use? There are no markets; it's a chance if my wheat is taken; and my potatoes I may have to give to the pigs. If we had only a market, you'd have to travel long before you would see the like of these prairies about the Assiniboine." Hind's Narrative, vol. i. p. 151.

Before inquiring, however, into the best means of meeting this primary want, it will be convenient to investigate the character of the territory beyond the limits of the settlement in the valley of the Red River. The whole region included between Lake Winipeg and the Rocky Mountains is distributed into three distinct and boldly-marked levels. The lowest of these nowhere rises more than 100 feet above the level of Lake

Winipeg, or 700 feet above the sea. The prairies of the Red River and the Lower Assiniboine form the southern part of it; the remainder, or nearly nine-tenths of the whole, is an expanse of lake, marsh, and rock. The transition to the second level is marked by a chain of hills, known as Pembina, Riding, and Duck Mountains, which extend in a N.N.W. direction from the United-States frontier to the Saskatchewan. Their sides and

summits are covered in most places with a dense forest of white spruce, aspen, poplar, and birch. To the west of these hills the country has a mean elevation above the sea of 1100 feet. Much of the surface was formerly covered with wood, which has been destroyed by successive fires. It is watered by the South and Main Saskatchewan, the Assiniboine, and the Qu'Appelle River. South of the Qu'Appelle the eastern part of the second level has an undulating and often picturesque surface, and a tolerably fertile soil; but to the west of the Little Souris the country, so far as Mr. Hind could judge, is a treeless arid plain. To the north of the Qu'Appelle River the character of the soil improves. Along the course of the South Saskatchewan as well as of the main stream there are large areas of land well adapted for settlement. Between the South Saskatchewan and the Assiniboine, the Touchwood Hills, with some lesser parallel ranges, occupying a space of twenty miles in length by ten in breadth, are characterised by great beauty of scenery and richness of soil; while on the eastern and northern bank of the Assiniboine "the whole country, with the exception of narrow ridges, possesses a rich

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