The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-26 00:00:00

"'''-beieletinix e 31111;

LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1849.

Although Lord LINCOLN'S motion respecting Van-
couver's Island was drcpped by a "count-out" imme-
diately after his admirable exposure of that shame-
ful act of Ministerial jobbery, the subject will be
brought forward again by the Noble Lord, in the
shape of a grievance upon the first Sup-
ply night that may appear to present a
favourable opportunity. It is hardly neces-
sary for us to say we are glad of this, seeing that
from the very outset we have protested against the
transaction as one damning to the patriotic disinte-
restedness of the Administration. Under whatever
form the matter may be brought before the considera-
tion of Parliament, it cannot appear to the popular
representatives as otherwise than a monstrous
subordination of public interests to private
emolument. As such, therefore, it demand:, the rigid
and exacting scrutiny of the House of Commons.
That scrutiny it will command either during this or
on some ensuing session. Tne importance of the
retention of an island like that of Quadra, command-
ing the -whole of the Pacific, and affording an
outlet for the productions of our North Ame-
rican possessions, would constitute of itself a gua-
rantee that ultimately the fact and the manner
of its transference will be subjected to the inquiries
of the Legislature. But in addition to this powerful
inducement to an investigation, there is the notorious
incapacity of the Hudson's Bay Company to effect
anything else than the systematic sterilization of any
territory that may, by an evil destiny, be brought
under their jurisdiction. We call it sterilisation ad-
visedly, for we cannot regard that plan as other
than a plan of deliberate sterilization which reduces
a country to a wild, exuberant, spontaneous, and
consequently profitless slate of vegetation, simply
for the purpose of aiding the propagation of the fur.
coated animals, from the bear to the beaver, from
the lynx to the ermine. This system of manage-
ment has been carried out uninterruptedly by the
Hudson's Bay Company throughout the whole of their
gigantic possessions, and this system, in spite of such
farcical masquerades of colonization as the Red River
settlement, they are determined to carry out, per fas
et nefas, for their own private advantage as a mercan-
tile association. Now it surely does not remain for
us to pronounce such a scheme of government as not
only pernicious to our interests as a nation, and preju-
dicial to our reputation as a civilized race, but a disgrace
to us as an empire, and a crime to us as Christians.
The fact is legible on the face of all history, both
ancient and modern, both remote and contemporary.
It was the circumstance of WILLIAM RUFUS pre-
chiding the possibility of anything like agri-
guttural progress in the largest and most
fruitful portions of Hampshire (rhe New Forest)
that imparted to his reign an air of such
savage austerity.
Yet what WILLIAM RUFUS
did to the portion of a mere province of his dominion,
at a time when that dominion extended no further 1
than beyond the boundary line of the Grampians and 1
the shores of England, the Huasan's Bay Com- 1
pany have done (and that too in the eighteenth 1
and nineteenth centusios !) to half of a vast con- 1
tinent like the northern continent of America. What
WILLIAM Rurus did for the sake of the manly sport
of bunting, the Hudson's Bay Company have been
and are doing for the sake of so much profit as
traders ! DA them draw a warning in the
silty* of ti deduction from the annals of