Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-12-07
FOURTEEN
By Walter Noble Rurns

ernor and Company of Adventurer. of England Trading Into Hudson, Bay, otherwise known as the Hud sons Bay company, is closing out tt farm settlers the land that repre- sents the last vestiges of its former empire.
 With two centuries and a half o1 history behind it, the company stands at the beginning of new era Auto. crat of the days when western Can. ada was wilderness, it has severed one after another the ties that bind 1t to the romance of the past and adopted new policies that align ii with the progress of the modern bus mess world. The old fur trader of yesterday is one of the great mer- chants of Canada today.
 With it's fortune and it's fame founded on furs since it's first factory was established on the shores of Hudson Bay, the company up to ten ly a fur trader. With the old beaver country covered with farms and cities and civilization encroaching upon it's old fur preserves, it saw the hand writing on the wall and decided up- on a revolutionary change in it's af- fairs.
 Its dostinies had been guided from the time of Prince Rupert, its first governor, by the board of directors, sitting in state in old England's Hud- sons Bay house in London. The marvellous development of Canada since the old fur brigades swept the mountains and prairies of their wealth in peltries, had made neces- sary more intimate contact with western conditions. Winnipeg, the Chicago of the North" had risen on the site of old Fort GaGrry.
 Still Worlds Greatest Fur Trader.
 Beginning at Winnipeg in 1881 and onward until 1893, the company de- veloped it's stores as distinct from it's fur trade posts. The present chain of department stores built across western Canada was logical devel- opment of the earlier stores. These general merchandising stores are in Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Van couver, Lethbridge, Macleod, Kam- loops, Nelson, Vernon and Yorkton Those in Calgary and Vancouver are among the finest stores in Canada. A beautiful new store is now being completed in Victoria, B. c. In stock an dequipment, they are comparable to the great department stores of the United States. They stand like mon- uments marking the dividing line be- tween the company's old policy and its new, it's past of romance and it's present of business.
 The company is still one of the worlds great fur traders. It still has 15O fur posts scattered throughou. Canada. Still on the shores of Hud- son Bay stand it's Rupert's House, Moose Factory, Cumberland House, Norway House, Albany, York Factory and Churchill-names to coniure with. Still in upper Canada, among the Manitoba lakes, on the rivers of Saskatchewan and Alberta, in the Athabasca country, on the frozen shores of the Arctic, and in British Columbia, in whatever remote region furs are still to be gathered, the company's ancient banner with it's ar- morial bearings and its motto "Pro Pelle. Cutem for skin-flies over old posts and new that uphold the prestige and traditions of the Hudson's Bay adventurers.
 The company still ships to England annually millions of dollars worth of raw furs. Most people think of the fur trade as dying industry. It was never so prosperous. With pres ent high prices, the value of the furs taken by the Hudson Bay company last year was as great as in any year of it's history
 Ruled Imperial Domains.
 With it's enormous fur trade still remaining and with the wonderful growth of it's business of general merchandising, the company has reached period when land is no longer of use to it. Time was when It was the greatest landed proprietor in the world
 Under it's original charter granted by King Charles II in 1870, it be- came practically sole owner and ruler of "the lands and territories upon the countries, coasts and confines of the seas, bays, lakes, rivers, creeks, and sounds in whatsoever latitude they should be that lie within the en- trance of the straits of commonly called Hudson straits not already ac- tually possessed by or granted to any of his majesty's subjects or possess ed by the subjects of any other Chris tian price or state" To the Hud- sons Bay company, the Merrie Mon arch, by "the grace of God" and the flourish of goosequill pen, gave this vast empire in fee simple "with sole rights of trade and possession"
 The pioneer history of the conti- nent's great Northwest is virtually a history of the Hudson's Bay com pany From the first pompous old governors who in the bravery of cooked hat, lace ruffles and red coat. i kinged it ia their little wilderness posts to the time of the coming of the settlers to the western prairies. theer is no more picturesque or dra- matic story in American annals.
 The French under dTberville. | swept the forts on Hudson Bay with lire s1d sword. The North West