11th November." Mr. Snow, who I before advised you was expected here to superintend in making a road from this settlement to the Lake of the Woods, with a view to opening direct communication with Canada, arrived some time ago, and is now on the eve of commencing operations. He has brought in with him some provisions, with which he purposes paying for labour on the road. On his arrival here, he called on me to show his instructions from the Commissioner of Public Works. These contained nothing of any consequence beyond the expression of a hope on the part of the Commissioner that the Company's agent here would offer no opposition to Mr. Snow's operations, but would leave the matter entirely in the hands of the Imperial Government, which, as generally people here regard Mr. Snow's arrival as opportune, on account of the scarcity of provisions, I agreed to do; and without instructions to protest against Mr. Snow's action, I did not think it politic to do so. No. 15. Sir Frederic 4 Jan. 1869. * Page 31. COPY of a LETTER from Sir Frederic Rogers, Bart, to Sir Curtis Sir, Downing-street, 4 January 1869. I AM directed by Earl Granville to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 22nd ultimo,* stating that the Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company propose to postpone sending in their answer to Mr. Adderley's letter of 1st December, until after the election of a new Governor, in the room of the Right Hon. the Earl of Kimberley, for which purpose a General Court of the Proprietors has been summoned for Tuesday, the 5th inst. I am to express Lord Granville's hope that the Committee will not allow any unnecessary delay to take place in coming to a decision upon the proposals contained in Mr. Adderley's letter. No. 16. I am, &c. (signed) Frederic Rogers COPY of a LETTER from the Right Hon. Sir Stafford H. Northcote, Bart., to Sir. Hudson's Bay House, London, 13 January 1869. I HAVE the honour to acquaint you, for the information of Earl Granville, that I was elected by the shareholders of this Company, on Tuesday the 5th instant, to the office of Governor, vacant by the resignation of the Earl of Kimberley. It now becomes my duty to address you in reply to Mr. Adderley's letter, dated the 1st December 1868,† which was received by my predecessor on the eve of his resignation, and to which, in consequence of that event, the Committee have not been able to send an earlier answer. Before making any observations upon the particular topics discussed in Mr. Adderley's letter, I am desired by the Committee to assure Lord Granville that they continue sincerely anxious to promote the object, with a view to which this Company was reconstructed five and-a-half years ago, viz., the gradual settlement of such portions of their territory as admit of colonisation; that they adhere to the opinion expressed in their resolution of the 28th August 1863, viz.: that the time has come when it is expedient that the authority, executive and judicial, over the Red River Settlement, and the south-western portion of Rupert's Land should be vested in officers deriving such authority directly from the Crown; and that they cheerfully accept the decision of Her Majesty's Government, communicated to them in Mr. Adderley's letter of the 23rd April 1868, viz., that the whole of the Company's territory should, under proper conditions, be united with the Dominion of Canada, and placed under the authority of the Canadian Parliament. Acting 76. Acting in accordance with the wish of Her Majesty's Government, as conveyed to them in Mr. Elliot's letter of the 23rd January 1867, the Com-Printed in Apmittee have declined to encourage overtures which have been made to them by pendix III., page private persons for the purchase of portions of the Company's territory, with a view to their colonisation, and have kept the whole question in abeyance during the time that the negotiations, which have led to the Confederation of the British Provinces constituting the Dominion of Canada, were proceeding. In the whole of that time they have taken no step which could give.rise to fresh complications. or could place any new difficulty in the way of the admission of their territory into the Confederation when the proper moment should arrive; and when they were informed by Mr. Adderley's letter of the 23rd of April that the Parliament of Canada had addressed Her Majesty upon the subject, and were requested to state the terms which the Company would be prepared to accept, proceeding on the principle adopted in the interrupted negotiation of 1864, they unhesitatingly complied with the desire of the Government. It is therefore with surprise, as well as with regret, that they have learnt from the letter now under reply, that the terms proposed by them, even when most strictly in conformity with the principles adopted in 1864, are considered by Her Majesty's Government to be inadmissible, and not to afford much prospect of an arrangement being come to. They find, for instance, that the stipulation that the Company should receive one shilling per acre on lands hereafter sold, which was originally suggested to the Committee by his Grace the late Duke of Newcastle, in Mr. Fortescue's letter of 11th March 1864,† and which has never tIbid, page 68. hitherto been called in question, is the first point to which exception is now taken. Objections are also raised against several other proposals which have been long before the Government, while no notice at all is taken of some which have been made for the first time with a view to the protection of the Company's trade, and with regard to which the Committee are left in ignorance whether they are considered admissible or not. The Committee, although somewhat embarrassed by this apparent change in the spirit of the correspondence, desire me, however, to make the following observations upon some of the remarks contained in Mr. Adderley's letter, in order that there may be no misapprehension as to the bearing of their proposals. The Committee are aware that, as is stated in Mr. Adderley's letter, in order to prepare the country for settlement, very considerable annual outlay will have to be incurred, and that for this charge the produce of the early sales of land is the natural resource; but they are at a loss to understand upon what ground it is alleged that their proposals would deprive the future Government of the ceded territory of "any prospect, for a long time at least, of receiving any income." The only part of the territory in which it is probable that any early or extensive settlement will take place is the part known as the Fertile Belt. It has been confidently asserted by independent persons who have travelled through the country that a great part of this land is not inferior in quality, or in advantages of climate, to the adjoining United States territory, now forming the State of Minnesota; and it has been justly pointed out that, being prairie land, it does not require much labour to render it fit for cultivation. But the price of land in Minnesota ranges, as the Committee are informed, from 5 s. to 1 l. per acre. The Committee think, therefore, that the fixed payment of 1 s. per acre, proposed by the Duke of Newcastle, and accepted by them as a basis of compensation, cannot be deemed to be unreasonable in so far as relates to land sold within the limits set forth in Sir Edmund Head's letter of the 11th November 1863.‡ As regards any portions of land lying outside those limits which may possibly be sold, the Committee think it very improbable that such sales will take place except for mining purposes, in which case the payment of 1 s. an acre could hardly be deemed excessive. In order to save trouble and to obviate disputes, therefore, the Committee proposed the fixed payment of 1 s. per acre in respect of all sales, wherever they may take place; and they believe that the arrangement would have been, on the whole, more favourable to Canada than that suggested by Mr. Adderley. Mr. Adderley proceeds to remark, with reference to Lord Kimberley's proposal, that the Company should retain certain reserves around their posts, that the reservations would amount to upwards of 500,000 acres. It was, however, stated by Lord Kimberley and the Deputy Governor, at an interview with the ‡ Ibid, page 66. Appendix III., page 66, + Page 22. Duke of Buckingham upon this subject, that the Committee were willing to confine their claim for reserves to the limits defined by Sir Edmund Head's letter of the 11th November 1863; that they were prepared to agree that such reservations should be measured by the importance of the posts to which they were to be attached, and should in no case exceed 3,000 acres. The total quantity of land to be retained by the Company under this arrangement would not exceed 50,000 acres. The Committee cannot agree to the absolute exclusion of these reserves from all frontage "to rivers or tracks, roads, or porterages," which would render them entirely valueless, though they would have been ready to consider any reasonable limitation of these special advantages. As regards the right of selecting lands for the Company in proportion to the quantities sold from time to time by the Government, the Committee desire to call Lord Granville's attention to the reasons given in Sir E. Head's letter of the 13th April 1864 for adopting this mode of reservation in preference to that of "setting apart beforehand a number of isolated tracts of wild land dotted over the surface of the Colony, and calculated to impede the free flow of settlement in the territory." Their proposal was framed with reference to sales in the Fertile Belt only, and it never entered into their minds to contemplate such contingencies as those suggested in Mr. Adderley's letter. In order, however, to obviate all cavil upon this point, they would have been quite willing to limit the Company's right of selec tion to the case of lands sold or alienated within Sir E. Head's limits, provided that it were agreed that no alienations should take place beyond those limits, except either for distinctly public purposes, or for the bona fide carrying on of agricultural or mining operations. As regards Mr. Adderley's proposal, that the right of selection should be confined to five lots of 200 acres each, in each township as it is set out, the Committee can only remark that the character of this proposal must depend upon the size of the township, of which no indication has been given. The Committee still adhere to the opinion, that under the peculiar circumstances of the proposed transfer of their territory, it would be reasonable that their wild lands should, for a limited time, be exempt from taxation, in order to allow them a fair opportunity of bringing them into profitable cultivation. They observe that Mr. Adderley makes no reference to the 10th stipulation contained in Lord Kimberley's letter of the 13th May;† viz., that until the stipulated sum of 1,000,000 l. sterling has been paid to the Company, no export duties shall be levied by Canada upon furs exported by the Company, nor any import duties on articles imported by them into the North Western Territory, and into that part of Rupert's Land which is not included within the geographical limits laid down in Sir Edmund Head's letter of 11th November 1863. This is a point to which the Committee attached very great importance. If it had been proposed by the Canadian Government to make a direct purchase of the Company's territory, and to pay the price for it at once, the Company would of course have accepted their fair share of the burdens which annexation might be expected to involve. But if the purchase-money is to be withheld until the Canadian Government have sold off 20,000,000 acres of the land, or have realised a considerable sum by the produce of mining operations, it is reasonable that the pressure of the fiscal burdens, which would fall almost exclusively upon the Company's trade should be suspended also. Otherwise it might happen that, in consequence of the neglect or the inability of the Canadian Government to proceed with the settlement of the territory, the Company would be subjected to very heavy contributions to the Colonial Treasury without receiving the smallest benefit in return. As an illustration of the extent to which they might thus be injured, were no limitation placed upon the Colonial power of taxation, I may observe that, according to the present Canadian tariff, the duty upon the value of the Company's imports alone would amount to about 20,000 l. a-year; while any export duty that might be laid upon their furs would operate still further to their disadvantage. The Committee feel confident that Lord Granville will acknowledge the reasonableness of their taking precautions against such a contingency. The Committee have desired me to offer to Lord Granville these explanations of their proposals, in order to show that they have done their best to comply with the desire of Her Majesty's Government, that they should submit a scheme founded on the principles of the negotiations of 1864. They have not, however, failed to perceive, from an early period of the lengthened correspondence which has has taken place between them and the Government, that those principles necessarily gave rise to many difficulties; and they have felt this the more strongly since the negotiations, originally commenced between the Company and Her Majesty's Government, have virtually become negotiations between the Company and the Government of Canada. They cannot disguise from themselves the danger which exists that arrangements so complicated, and involving so many topics for future discussion, are likely to lead to the Company's being placed in a position of antagonism to the Government of Canada, and to the creation of a state of things injurious not only to their own interests but to the welfare of the country itself. They are sincerely anxious to co-operate with the Canadian Government in the settlement, development, and improvement of the territories with which they have been so long connected, and they believe that if the arrangements between them can be placed on a satisfactory footing, it will be in their power to render material assistance to the Colonial authorities in this respect. They believe that if a simpler arrangement than that which has recently been under discussion could be adopted, and if the Canadian Government were prepared to complete the purchase of the territory at once, by the payment of a sum of money or by the delivery of bonds, it would conduce to a more satisfactory result than the prolongation of a controversy as to the minute points of such a scheme as has been under consideration. Should Lord Granville be of this opinion, and should his Lordship think it desirable to recommend any proposal of the kind to the Canadian delegates, this Committee will gladly place themselves in fuller communication with him on the subject. I have, &c. (signed) Stafford H. Northcote, Governor. COPY of a LETTER from Sir Frederic Rogers, Bart., to Sir Curtis Lampson, Bart. Sir, Downing-street, 28 January 1869. I LAID before Earl Granville your letter of the 22nd* ultimo, relating to an invasion of the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company, apprehended by them from certain steps taken under the authority of the Canadian Government. A copy of your letter was, by his Lordship's direction, forwarded to Sir G. Cartier and Mr. M'Dougall, with a request that they would furnish any explana- 16 January 1869. tion it might be in their power to afford respecting the proceedings of the Page 50. Canadian Government that were referred to; and I am desired to transmit tỏ you, for the information of the Hudson's Bay Company, a copy of the letter which has been received from those gentlemen in reply. I am, &c. (signed) Frederic Rogers: COPY of a LETTER from the Right Hon. Sir Stafford H. Northcote, Bart., M.P., Sir, to Sir Frederic Rogers, Bart. Hudson's Bay House, London, No. 18. Right Hon. Sir I HAVE the honour to acknowledge your letter of the 28th January, addressed Rogers, Bart. to the Deputy Governor of this Company, enclosing a communication from Sir G. Cartier and Mr. McDougall on the subject of the recent proceedings of the Canadian Government in the matter of the construction of a road through the Company's territory, between Fort Garry and the Lake of the Woods. After the distinct statement contained in Sir Curtis Lampson's letter of the 22nd December, that the Company, while protesting against a trespass on their land, were prepared favourably to entertain any application for permission to make such a road, either on the part of the Imperial, or of the Canadian Government, the Committee think it unnecessary to discuss the greater portion of the letter of the Canadian Ministers. Their objection is not to the road being made, but to its being undertaken by the Canadian Government as a matter of right, as though the territory through which it is to pass were Canadian. Such a step, taken at a moment when negotiations are in progress for the transfer of the Company's possessions to Canada, and taken by a Government which openly disputes their title to this portion of them, could not have been allowed to pass unchallenged without derogating from the Company's rights. The Canadian Government themselves seem to have been alive to this. Mr. Mactavish states that the agent of that Government (Mr. Snow), on arriving at the Red River, communicated to him his instructions from the Commissioner of Public Works in Canada, containing the expression of "a hope on the part of the Commissioner that the Company's agent here would offer no opposition to Mr. Snow's operations, but would leave the matter entirely in the hands of the Imperial Government." Governor Mactavish, upon this, very properly allowed Mr. Snow to commence his operations; and so far as this Company is concerned, no impediment has been, or will be, offered to the prosecution of the work. If it were worth while to discuss that part of the letter of the Canadian Ministers which refers to the circumstances under which the construction of the road was ordered, the Committee would be able to show that the Company had in no way failed in their duty to the Colony, but that they had promptly taken measures for the relief of its inhabitants, and had supplied large sums, both by direct grants and by subscriptions raised under their auspices for that purpose, at a period anterior to the appropriation of the Canadian Road Grant. They would also be able to point out how the delay which has occurred in opening up communications, and otherwise developing the resources of the Red River Settlement, is due to the restraint which has been imposed upon them by Her Majesty's Government at the request of Canada, and not to any negligence or indifference of their own. But the Committee desire to avoid the raising of a false issue, and they accordingly instruct me to re-state to Earl Granville the precise complaint which they have to make. It is this: That while negotiations are going on for the acquisition of their territory by Canada, the Canadian Government are endeavouring to exercise rights of ownership over a portion of that territory to the exclusion of the Company, and to the prejudice of their title. This they are doing by virtue of an old claim which they have repeatedly advanced, which the Company have invariably disputed and have declared themselves ready to contest before a court of law, and which Her Majesty's Government, acting under the advice of various Law Officers of the Crown, have declined to endorse. The Canadian Government have hitherto shown no inclination to bring their claim to the test of a judicial decision, and in the absence of any such decision, the Committee consider it not unreasonable to ask that due respect should be paid to the Company's uninterrupted possession of the territory for two centuries, and to the numerous and weighty legal opinions which have from time to time been given in their favour. In appealing to Earl Granville for support in this matter, instead of entering into a controversy with Canada, or taking legal steps to enforce the Company's rights, the Committee have been actuated by a desire to proceed as far as possible in accordance with the views and wishes of Her Majesty's Government, as they have endeavoured to do throughout the pending negotiations for the establishment of a settled form of government at the Red River. They desire now respectfully but confidently to claim the support and protection of the Colonial Minister against any invasion of the Company's rights which may have been prompted or facilitated by the policy which they have adopted in order to meet the wishes of the Colonial Office. I have, &c. |