Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-11-19

has been a very great benefit to him. It
Is not enforced with as great care In all
parts of Canada as 1T is in Ontario, but
the penalty is SO severe that unscrupu-
lous dealers hesitate to run the risks. The
Indian is thus saved from at least one
vice. That he is steady in his habits and
honest Is the testimony of Hudson Bay
Company officials. Indian agents, travel
erS and explorers.
That he responds readily to fair treat
ment is eXemplified by the conduct of the
Sioux tribe. which came into the Cana
dian northwest from the United States
some twenty-five years ago. They were
then turbulent, troublesome and war
like people. Once on Canadian soil, how
ever, they became law-abiding citizens
and are today about the best behaved
and most progressive of his majesty's
subjects in the Northwest territories
Whatever faults there may be in tho
Canadian system of government, they do
not now manifest themselves in the man.
agement of the Indian population.
once there was an incipient rebellion in
the northwest because a sleepy minister
of the interior failed to carry out the de-
clared policy of the Canadian people to
honestly administer the law affecting the
rights Of the half-breed population; but
very speedily the wrongs were righted
and the unity with which the demand for
justice to these children of the prairie
was made but emphasized the policy of
Canada to deal generously and faithfully
at all times with the Indians. This is so
well understood by the Indians in Canada
that the. task of their management in the
transitional stage of their existence has
been comparatively easy one They
know that the government will keep
latin with them; and they are ready in
turn to keep faith with the government.
As Railroad Builders.
When we were building the Union Pa
cific railway across the plains we were
obliged TO employ the United States
troops to guard the builders. If the
ghosts of the dead who died violently in
that first fve-year fight for the west
We're to line up along the right of way
there would be almost enough of them to
mark the miles.
On a thrty-mile drive from the North
Saskatchewan to Saskatoon not long ago I
met dozens of teams, almost all driven by
Indians and half-breeds. They are haul
ing the long logs that are to he driven
twenty and thirty feet into the sands of the
saskatchewan to carry the false work of
the canadian Northern steel bridge that Is
to cost the company $4,000.
What a contrast But 1t is not all dine
to time and civilization. A lot of II ia the
result of decent treatment of a class of
people whose history is as sad as that of
the buffalo.
Instead of hindering, as our Indians did
the northern Indians are helping to build
the railroad In the construction of the
new transcontinental line Indians will be
employed wherever they can be used for
the road is to be rushed with all possible
speed consistent with good work The In
dams are useful also to the pathfinders as
guides; they know the forests of New On
tario. as the north country is called; they
know the mountain Businesses of the far
off Peace river and all the crooks and can
ons of the Coast Range In short the red
man OF today Is the trusted guide and
faithful servant of the pathfinder. He hunts
for the white man STILL but quite different
1y from the way he used to hunt for the
pioneers of the plains.