The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-31 00:00:00

s tate of thorough idleness, and, through the ne cessities of fur and the peculiarities of luxury and c limate, to bar the inroad of civilization. Strange as the incident may appear, it is no less an his torical fact. For two centuries the Hudson's bay Company have occupied a vast territory, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, in extent almost as large as Europe, and have there done their best to preserve foxes and beavers. We do not think that any blame ought to attach to the Hudson's -bay Company. The fur-bearing ani mals were a sort of final cause to it ; in fact, it was a society of trappers and traders feral defen dere nata, since the days of the Merry Monarch. The Company has done so for 150 years, and might have done so for 1.50 years longer if it had not been for the " accident " of gold. That powerful metal is likely to open the Hudson's bay territory, 400,000 square miles of which ap pear not to have been meant for fur-bearing animals and a fur-seeking Company exclusively as much as for mankind in general. Opposite political luminaries are in bland conjunction on this point. Mr. ROEBUCK and Mr. GLADSTONE are agreed that the old signs of the Hudson's hay Company, "No Thoroughfare " and "No " Admission on any Kind of Business," should be removed, and an eager and industrial immigrant world admitted. The debate upon the Bill for giving a political organization to the new gold district, and the subsequent discussion upon Mr. ROEBUCK'S resolutions respecting the rivileges of the Hudson's-bay Company, are full of significance. On both occasions the new Colonial Secretary handled the matter in a spirit of wise and large statesmanship. Without committing himself to Mr. ROEBUCK'S resolu tions, Sir EDWARD BULWER LyrroN indicated the policy of the Government with respect to the present occupiers and the aboriginal possessors of the soil in words no less significant than they were eloquent : "It is my sincere wish and hope that arrange ments may be effected in a spirit of reasonable conciliation to all parties concerned, and that we may thus lay the foundation of a civilized com munity upon the principles of humanity towards the red men, and of honour and honesty to wards the white, which our civilization should carry with it, wherever it extends, as the colonizers of old carried along with them a fragment of their native earth, and a light from the altar of their council-hall." Upon these broad and somewhat oldifashioned principles, a Bill has been introduced, and has passed a third reading in the House of Lords, for the organization of a colony upon which her Majesty has been pleased to confer the title of British Columbia. The Bill provides for the infant colony what colonies in a state of infancy, surrounded by rather wild and boisterous neigh bours, have most need of—the tutelage of a strong executive government. It is, in fact, a Bill to obviate the necessity of a Vigilance Com mittee, or the establishment of a Band of' Regu lators, or any other popular mode of provisional government. The Bill creates a governor for four years, to be intrusted with full and absolute powers, dependent, however, upon the will of the Crown, who may, if it think fit, at any time establish a freer government and more liberal institutions. Power is also conferred upon the Crown at any time, upon the joint address of the two Houses of ancouver's Island, to annex that island to the new colony. Thus the nucleus of a group of colonies has been formed, in which we may see, as Sir EDWARD BULWER forcibly expressed it, " a rampart "against any hostile inroads from the Amencan "frontier, and an essential arch, as it were, to "that great viaduct by which we hope one day `• to connect the harbours of Vancouver with the "Gulf of St. Lawrence." Part of this unsettled territory has been offered to Canada, and in the event of her refusal to avail herself of it, such Part of the fertile tract which seems to invite the labours of men and oxen we shall at once take into our own hands, groove with railroads, and intersect with canals, leaving only the colder part of the earth to the allotted work of the Hudson's baY Company, and to be a hunting-ground for red men—" a portion for foxes." British Columbia at present is as full of motley contrasts as California was ten years ago. There is a universal " stanpedo " northward. The streets of San Francisco " are alive with red, blue, and grey-shirted men, ranging about in squads THE PRESS, JULt 31, 1858. . "with picks, shovels, pans, blankets, and primi tive little rockers on their shoulders." The roads over the Rocky Mountains, thronged with stages and waggons, with battalions of wild, ruffianly filibusters on horseback and muleback, present an appearance similar to the retreat of a South American army. Twelve thousand per sons have quitted San Francisco in six weeks, and amongst them, we are informed, "men the " most inveterate and pertinacious of all, news paper men, are leaving in great numbers." The Pacific is unpacific with lines of colossal steamers and clippers, and the Surprise, a fine Yankee sea-going steamboat, has made its way 150 miles up the Frazer River. To this new child of civilization which has come into the world with a gold ladle in its mouth, we say, with the best wishes for its growth in English enterprize, speech, and religion—" Mail ! British Columbia !" THE PEELITES. IT is one of the daily trials attendant on our im perfect state, as well as one of the readiest proofs of its imperfection, that we find ourselves dif fering often, and occasionally on most momentous questions, from those whom we love, esteem, and respect sincerely. Our principles may be essen tially the same, yet cases arise when we are utterly unable to agree as to the conclusions to be drawn from them, or as to the mode of their application. We feel such cases to be painful, but we know them to be ineVitable, and we owe it to the very law of our nature, to our own fal libility as well as that of others, to see that such occasional differences do not produce bitterness or estrangement. Combined action will else be impossible, even among chief friends; every man will be his own Pope, and abide in a glorious minority of one. Perhaps the greatest of the many evils which sprang from the ill-omened Coalition under Lord ABERDEEN was its tendency to perpetuate a dis agreemert which the lapse of time and change would else have gone far to efface. Sir R. PERI, was gone, and those who had felt themselves aggrieved by his change of opinion on the Corn law question, or by the manner in which he car ried out his altered views, had acquiesced in the new system, and were earnestly desirous to carry it out fairly and impartially, so as to escape the class legislation threatened by the triumph of the League. Lord GEORGE BENTINCK was gone, and if some were still living whom a sense of de sertion had urged to personalities which Sir ROBERT'S most attached adherents still resented, yet such invectives had been regretted as well as discontinued, and it is easy for the successful to be forgiving. With a little temper and a little patience, two or three years would have reunited the Conservative party, and we should have been spared the indecorum of ROEBUCK mutinying against the Duke of NEWCASTLE, and GLADSTONE cheek by jowl with Sir W. MOLESWORTIL But bitter memories and vague hopes prevailed, and a second edition of " all the talents" came out under Lord ABERDEEN'S auspices, claiming a re dundancy of administrative ability, but exhibiting from the first a lamentable want of statesman ship. Then came the long repentance of the Russian war—the mines and countermines of Lords PALMERSTON and J. RUSSELL—the pa triotic libels of the Times' correspondent—and the "elimination" from a be-Whigged Ministry of the men who to zealous unsparing work added the fatal honesty of confessing their mistakes. Meanwhile the " Peelites," the most unfairly treated by their Whig allies, had perhaps gotten rid of some of the repugnance they must have at first felt when called on to cast in their lot with a motley assemblage of jobbers and agitators. It was the affair of the Arrow that first marked the wide gulf which really existed between them and Lord PALMERSTON ; and as his career grew more reckless and more distaste ful to the nation, they stood more and more aloof from the Dictator, till at last they were found in strong opposition. They aided, though perhaps not deliberately, in the ejection of the late Ministry upon a straightforward question of English feeling, and in the only severe party con flict which has taken place since Lord DERBY took office they were found opposed to the tactics 723 of Cambridge-house, with the one memorable exception of the eminent red-tapist who gave his name, Icarus-like, to the gulf of an impassable resolution. Still, though not opponents, they can scarcely be called supporters of the present Administration. Even when rendering it effective aid, they have hith er t o a pp eare d s t u di ous ly t o avoid approval of its general policy, and to re strict themselves to an expression of opinion on the measure immediately before the House. The country learnt with much regret, after a K eek of anxious expectation, that Mr. GLADsToNE had declined (though in no abrupt or unfriendly manner) to join Lord DERBY'S Cabinet. We do not presume to question his motives, which pro bably had reference to the position of some of the friends with whom he was accustomed to act. He acted, no doubt, conscientiously, perhaps wisely. But some months have elapsed since his non acceptance of Lord DERBY'S offer, and have tended to set in a clearer light the task which the present Cabinet have before them, and the claim which, in the discharge of that task, they have upon all Conservatives. We say, advisedly, that it is not for the good of the country, or for the credit of Mr. GLADSTONE and his friends, that a party named after Sir ROBERT PEEL should longer maintain an armed neutrality between a Conservative Government and a Radical Oppo sition. Without going, with SOLON, the entire length of attaching civil degradation to political neutrality, we must avow our belief that an Eng lish statesman can only be justified in standing neutral by exceptional circumstances and during a short time. It is our earnest hope that the present recess will put an end to the political isolation of the party familiarly known as the Peelites. Were they men of a character likely to be much swayed by personal interests, we would warn them that it is not for their advantage that the nation and the House should grow accus tomed to seeing them taking no direct share in the conflict of parties. But we would rather appeal to them, and to Mr. GLADSTONE especially, on the higher ground that the best interests of the country demand of them the adoption of a decided course. We will not adopt the hack neyed cry that our national institutions were never in such imminent danger, but we may truly assert that they are likely to be attacked more openly than usual. The Whigs will of course adopt their customary opposition tactics, and tamper with revolutionary schemes which when in office they contrived to suppress or to defeat oy Conservative aid. The Radicals, who have gained strength by the decadence of Whiggery, will press their favourite nostrums of Secret Voting, and the Voluntary Principle, and do their best to degrade the constituencies and to rob the Church. These are questions on which Mr. GLADSTONE and Lord DERBY are thoroughly at one, and the friends of order through the country will draw confidence from seeing them act not together only, but in concert. On the question of Parliamentary Reform, again, it is of the utmost importance that the Bill which Mr. DISRAELI wiil have to bring forward—and which will doubtless aim at giving the counties a fairer share of the representation—should not be per verted in committee from a measure of justice and of amendment to an increase of democratic influence. We trust that Mr. GLADSTONE and his friends will not be deluded by the interested fallacies of the " Liberal " press into standing . aloof from a struggle in which they may render invaluable assistance to the Conservative cause. They are at present strong in reputation, though weak in numbers ; but should their continued neutrality lead to Lord DERBY'S defeat (we trust we have heard the last of capitulation) on any vital question, they will have lost the weight derived from high character, the anchorage of recognized principle, and will be drifted about undistinguished among the motley and fluctuating mass of Liberals. "THE MOST SPLENDID EXAMPLE OF TIIE GREATEST MODERN POWER." THERE is at present, we understand, in the me tropolis, a chessplayer of such distinguished merit that he is reported to have played seven games at once without even a sight of the board, and only to have lost two. The Times, in an ad misericordiem article published in the begin- ning of this week, reports of itself an equally 1 A