The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-30 00:00:00

IMPERIAL P A.RLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS, June 29.
Their Lordships met at Five o'clock.
0 ‘THS BILL.

The Earl of WICKLOW said—l rise to exercise a
privilege that is the right of every Member of this
House. I now lay on the table a Bill to alter the oaths
to be taken by all persons required to take the oaths of
allegiance, abjuration, and supremacy, which I now
move be read a first time.
The Bill was read a first time accordingly.
VANCOUVER'S ISL &ND. _ _ _

Earl GREY moved the second reading of the Ad-
ministration of Justice (Vancouver's Island) Bill. The 1
colonization of Vancouver's Island was intended to take
place by the Hudson's Bay Company. No political
power was conferred on that company, but grants of land
had been made to them, as had been made in former
times to other colonizing companies, but under much
greater restrictions. The company were bound to provide
for the defence of the island. They were also bound to
sell lands, and to expend the receipts in the colonization
and improvement of Vancouver's Island. The Govern-
ment was entrusted to a governor appointed by the
Crown. The present Governor had been recommended
by the Hudson's Bay Company, but he believed he was
well qualified for the office. No body possessing the
power of taxation was to be established in the first in-
stance, but the Governor had power of creating
a legislative body, and the Bill also enacted
that persons accused of crimes should be tried in Van-
couver's Island, and not in Canada, as was the case with
persons accused of crimes in other parts of the territories
of the Hudson's Bay Company. If Vancouver's Island
were not speedily colonized, it would be occu.
pied by squatters. The Government could not
incur the expense of immediately colonizing the
island, therefore it must be colonized either by
private individuals or by the Hudson's Bay Company.
It was hopeless to attempt to colonize by private enter-
prise, but the Hudson's Bay Company had the means of
colonizing it. They were c,nnected with Pugets Island
Company, and they had already a small settlement in
Vancouver's Island. Whether it would be profitable to
them or not he was not aware. Many of the shareholders
were opposed to it, but whatever might be the result, as
regarded the company, it was the interest of this country
that the settlement should be effected as speedily as
possible, and that could be best effected by the interven-
tion of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Lord MONTE AGLE would not oppose a Bill for the
better administration of justice, if it was confined to
that merely ; but with regard to the colonization of
Vancouver's Island, he believed it was very imperfectly
conducted. It was a principle of colonization that nothing
could be more wrong than to make grants of large blocks
of land to individuals, or companies, and thus depriv-
ing the Crown of its power. No one had more upheld
this doctrine than the present Secretary far the Colonies.
The importance of Vancouver's Island had been
universally admitted, and never had its importance been
more insisted on than at the time of the Oregon treaty.
The importance of that island had been since greatly in-
creased. It contained the only large supply of coal in
that part of the world. There had been large settle-
ments of American citizens in that neighbourhood in
consequence of the discovery of gold in California.
Now a grant of the whole of this island had been made
to one company. When Prince Edward's Island was
granted, not to one company-, but to five or six
individuals, no one had commented more severely on that
grant than his Noble Friend. But here was a grant of
a whole island to a trading company, whose pur-
suits of the fur trade incapacitated them for the
administration of the new functions which de.
volved on them as colonizers. If ever there was
a company that had shown itself incapable or
unwilling to perform the duties of colonizers it was the
Hudson's Bay Company. This company was originally
founded by charter in the time of Charles 11., the grants
of which were so extravagant that there could be no
doubt that portions of it were void. In the time of
William 111. a Bill was passed conferring the charter
for seven years, and on their application for a renewal,
the Bill was thrown out. Here was an admission that

without a confirmatory law the charter was unavailing;
that confirmatory Bill had never passed, and therefore
there were good grounds for doubting of the validity
of the charter as a whole. The charter was therefore
at best questionable, and ought not to be lightly dealt
with. There was a standing order that no Bill for con-
firming the charter should pass into a law without
setting forth the charter in the recital, and,
therefore, if they passed this Bill without rais
ing an objection they would be estopped for the future.
He contended that it was inconsistent with the public
welfare to make a grant of this island to a company. least
of all should they make it to a company such as the Hud-
son's Bay Company. It would have been wiser—ay,
and more constitutional too —for the Colonial Govern-
ment to have brought the extent of those powers, before
they were granted, under the notice of Parliament—es-
pecially as they were intended to transfer the jurisdic-
tion and government of Vancouver's Island from the
Crown to the Hudson's Bay Company. He had been
informed that the land in Vancouver's Island was to be
sold at a restricting pric- of 20s. an acre. On the oppo-
site of the sound in which that island was situate, he was
informed that the American Government was selling
land equally fertile at ss. 3i. an acre. Now, how could
their Lordships expect to find purchasers so absurd as
to give 20s. an acre for land when in the same vicinity
they could get land equally fertile for a fourth of that
sum? Besides, how was that land to be granted? Up
to the present time all the grants of the Hudson's Bay
Company hai b en acc.lmpanied with terms of such
degrading c.d exasperating slavery that no capitalist
had ever submitted to take them. That was one among
many reasons why the Hudson's Bay Company
should not be intrusted sith the business of coloniza-
tion. Moreover that coavany was a great monopolist.
. _

Their Lordships wtn doubtless im that they
were establishing; a free colony and free institutions
in Vancouver's Isl And, But if there were any

settler whom the Hudson's Bay COmpany wished drive
from that island they had a very easy and, with them, a
very well known system, of driving him from the set-
tlement. They were an exclusively trading company.
None but their vessels could carry freight to their settle-
ments; and thus, by making all commerce on his part
impracticable and by charging him with rates for
freight which deprived him of all chance of obtaining
any remuneration for his industry, they could drive him
as certainly from their dominions as if they were em-
powered to banish him by sentence of law. This was a
grave charge, but it was capable of proof, for it sea.;
only the process of expulsion which they bad carried
into execution on the banks of the Red River and else-
where. But it was said that precautions had been taken
to prevent the injurious consequences of such a system
of persecution, for the grant of the island was void in
case they did not settle it within five years. But if a
single family was settled on the island within that time
the condition of the grant was fulfilled, and there would
be no legal power to reverse it. Again, it was impos-
sible to laok at the present condition of North and
South America without seeing that, in a few years the
world must have a passage across the isthmus of Darien.
When that passage was completed Vancouver's Islaud
would become a coeamerciel position of great import-
ance; and yet that position the British Government
was now going to sacrifice and destroy, and for the sake
of an exclusively commercial and monopolizing com-
pany.
The Earl of SELKIRK rose for the purpose of repel-
ling imputations which had been unjustly cast by the last
speaker on the Hudson's Bay Company, of which he had
the honour to be a director, and of noticing some graver
imputations which had been cast upon it elsewhere, but
which he would not formally answer on this occasion.
The Nob:e Lord had confined his observations to two
topics—first, the incompatibility of colonization with the
pursuit and management of the fur trade, and secondly,
the legality, not of the charter for Vancouver's Island,
but of the original charter for the Hudson's Bay Corn-
pany. He took the latter subject first, and after vindi-
cating at some length the validity of the charter granted
by Charles 11. to the Hudson's Bay Company, proceeded
to refute the argument that because that company was a
fur trading company, it was inconsistent with its interests
to encourage colonization—in other words, that it would
discourage the sett:ensent of Vancouver's Island from a
wish to preserve the wild animals in its interior. Now,
the land in the centre of that island was said to be ex-
ceedingly fertile; and it was a well-known fact that
whereeer the land was eufficiently rich and fertile to be
favourable to the growth of corn and vegetables, the fur-
bearing animals either did not exist, or their fur was little
of value. The best furs were derived from the most inhos-
pitable climates, and therefore, as a fur-trading station,
Vancouver's Island was not of great value to !the
company. The Noble Lord had attacked the company,
and had stated that they were incapable of conducting
colon.zeti-n, because they had never carried it on in re-
regions of sterility where colonies could not exist. In
the countries granted to them by their charteriim
o cornnt h s
would not grow, because those countrun
of winter, and had a climate most inhospitable. el,
could the Hudson's Bay Company, or any other com-
pany, colonise there, where the food of man could not
grow? In the only district within their charter where
corn would grow they had planted a settlement, and that
settlement was not in an unfl nirishing condition. The
Noble Lord had also ventured to assert that the Hud•
son's Bay Company was unwilling to colonies This,
too, he (Lord Selkirk) denied. To encourage the set-
tlement on the Red River, they had gone to the expense
of conveying vessels to that coast for the purpose of fill-
ing up cargoes; but when you had got the cargoes the
vessels were sometimes detained by the severity
of the weather at the York settlement for a
whole year before they could get an oppor-
tunity for sailing. He then proceeded to contend
that there was no unwillingness on the part of the
company to colonize. It was essential to its interests
that it should have on the western coast of America a
place on which it could set its feet—in which it could
stock its cattle and could grow its corn, and from which
it could supply its ports on the continent of British Ame-
rica and also in the grounds leased to it by the Russian
Fur Company—for the whole western coast of America
in those latitudes was absolutely barren. This was the
reason why the Hudson's Bay Company wished to get
Vancouver's Island, of which the centre was yet unex-
plored, and of which the fertility was, he believed, ex-
aggerated. The company had therefore undertaken the
expense of exploring and colonising it. If it were as
fertile as was represented, and were left to remain
waste, it would soon be overrun by a multitude of
squatters. Now, the Hudson's Bay Company was bound
by its recent charter to keep the island free from
squatters; and, if it did not perform that obligation,
Government would have the power of res
unLord,B
grant at the expiration of five years. The Noble
having stated that the price of land in Vancouver's
Island was 20s. an acre, and on the opposite side of the
sound was infinitely lower, had asked whether it was
possible that it should ever be settled? Now, he was
not aware that the American Government bad located
any land there; and until it was located and placed
tinder acme kind of regular Goverment, it Taw in3P°lsli7