Before
Making A Decided Move, However, I Had Many Anxious Discussions With The
Duke As To Who The Real Purchaser Should Be.
My strong, and often
urged, advice was, that whoever the medium of purchase might be, Great
Britain should take to the bargain.
I showed that at the price named
there could be no risk of loss; and I developed alternative methods of
dealing with the question: - That the fur trade could be separated from
the land and rights, and that a new joint stock company could be
organized to take over the trading posts, the fleet of ships, the stock
of goods, and the other assets, rights, and privileges affecting trade,
and that such a company would probably pay a rental - redeemable over a
term of years, were that needful to meet Mr. Gladstone's notions - of 3
or 3-1/2 per cent, on 800,000l., leaving only 700,000l.
as the value of a territory bigger than Russia in Europe. Such a
company would have to raise additional capital of its own to modernize
its business, to improve the means of intercourse between its posts,
and to cheapen and expedite the transport to and fro of its
merchandise. I carefully described the nature of these changes and all
that they involved. The Duke seemed to favour this idea. Then I pointed
out that, if desired, a land company could be organized in England,
Canada, and the United States, which, on a similar principle of rental
and redemption, might take over the lands - leaving a reserve of
probably a fourth of the whole as the, unpaid for, property of the
Government - at the price of 700,000l. If these proposals
succeeded, then all the country would have to do was to lend
1,500,000l. on such security as could be offered, ample, in each
case, in my opinion. But I said it must be a condition, if these plans
were adopted, to erect the Hudson's Bay territory into a Crown Colony,
like British Columbia, and to govern it on the responsibility of the
Empire. I showed that this did not involve any large sum annually; and
that, as in the case of British Columbia, the loss would be turned into
a profit by sales of the one-fourth of the land to be given, in return
for the responsibilities, taken, to our country. Again, the cost of
government might be recouped by a moderate system of duties in and out
of the territory, to be agreed with Canada and British Columbia on the
one hand, and the United States on the other. This, in outline, was one
plan. The next was, to sell a portion of the territory to the United
States at the price, which I knew could be obtained, of a million. A
third plan which I suggested was, to open up portions of the "Fertile
belt" to colonization from the United States. To offer homes, in a
bracing, healthy country - with fertile lands and long waterways - to the
multitudes of men and women in Ohio, Kentucky, Maryland, and many other
States, who desired to flee from war and conflict; whose yearning was
for settled government and peace.
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