The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1910-08-28

"Lord Strathcona, the most veneer
able of British Canadians, has just
presided over the general court of the
Hudson s Bay Company, with whose
fortunes he has been for so many years
closely identified, and which, like him
self, is in lusty old age says the
Glasgow Herald.
There are few things more remark
able in the history of commerce than
the vitality and prosperity of this
great trading and land-owning concern.
the sixteenth and seventeenth cen
turtles it survives and fourishes. The
Virginia Company, which is the start
ing point of English history in what
are now the United States of America,
Is only a memory. The Irish Society,
formed to settle Ulster in Jacobean
days, is probably not even that. The
East India Company, most magnificent
and illustrious of commercial undertak-
ings. was dissolved more than fifty
years ago.
The Hudson s Bay Company, of
which. the charter dates from 1870, re-
mains securely entrenched in diminish
ed but still princely possessions, and
this year distributes in dividends to a
comfortably compact body of share
holders the sum of t240 ,000-free of
income tax; for the house of lords, in
its judicial capacity, has affirmed that
the peculiar conditions under which the
! company holds and disposes of its lands
relieves it from the exactions of British
chancellors of the exchequer.
It's Romantic Origin
Romance begins in the day Of small
things. The pioneers of British enter
prise in the lone lands of Canada were
! two Frenchmen, Grosseliers and Rods
son, who attempted first of ali to en-
| list the court of France in the promo
ton of the fur trade. Disappointed by
their countrymen, they turned to Eng
land and told the interesting story of
their hopes and beliefs to Charles II
and Prince Rupert The result was an
| expedition to Hudson Bay. which was
tCItu III IooC. anu ittuIHtt Will
| good reports in the following year.
In 1870 the company received its
charter, and with a generosity rival
ling that of the Pope, who divided the
New World between the two Catholic
powers, Charles II. handed over to
| the adventures tthe whole trade of all
those seas. streights and bays, rivers
lakes, creeks and sounds. in whatso
ever latitude they shall be, that lie
| within the entrance of the streights
commonly called Hudson Streights.'
That is to say, the company re-
ceived a gift of the trade in and prac-
teal sovereignty over all the territories
between Hudson Straits and the sum
| mits of the still unknown Rocky Noun
tains-Labrador and Rupert's Land, or
what are now defined as Manitoba and
the recently formed provinces of Al
berta and Saskatchewan.
When Canada Began to Be.
1t was truly regal gift. 1t made
the company the providence of a con.
| tinent 50 long as Canada remained. as
| it did for so many generations, except
| III the settled portions Of Ontario and
| Quebec, land of tremendous dis
tances and mighty solitudes.
| Rivalry began with the formation of
| the North West Company, fur trading
concern with its headquarters in Mon
treal. The severe struggle that ensued
continued for many years. but ended
ultimately in exhaustion and amalgama-
ton.
But there was a more portentous
! rivalrv-that of the development Of the
| Canadian nation. which the company
was obliged to meet and oonciliate by
oth her methods. No country advancing
IN political intelligence and aptitude
and determined to be the controller OF
its own destinies. could submit to the
perpetuation of a gigantic monopoly in
The vast past of its territories.
Accordingly in 1869, on the eve OF
Confederation the mother country step
ped in. and hv way of making amends
for the irresponsible munifcence of hel
| Stuart sovereign, repurchased nineteen
twenteths of the land included in the
aon+,tr,- OF fl Tho 1,ripp Yea