CHAP. V.

INSTITUTION OF THE COLONIES OF VANCOUVER ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA. THEIR PROGRESS TRACED, AND COMPARED WITH THAT

OF THE ADJOINING AMERICAN STATES. THEIR COMMERCE. POLICY OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA RESPECTIVELY, WITH REGARD TO THEIR POSSESSIONS ON THE PACIFIC.

HAS the progress of Her Majesty's Colonies in the North-West Pacific been commensurate with their natural geographical and commercial advantages, and with the resources of soils, minerals, timber, and fisheries which they are shown to possess, with a climate admitted to be better adapted to the constitution of Englishmen than that of any other portion of the Western Hemisphere from Cape Horn to Aliaska; and if not, why not?- are questions which I shall now endeavour to answer to the satisfaction of the reader, and at the same time to show, by a production of facts, the present commercial status of these colonies, with reference to that of the American States adjoining.

The first step taken by Great Britain to establish a colony on the north-west coast, omitting at present the consideration of Red River Colony, as too far inland to promise early success, was in 1849, one year after the gold discoveries in California, when by a Crown grant the Hudson's Bay Company were entrusted with the colonisation of Vancouver Island. The provisions of the grant are too well known to require detailed insertion here; but the principal inducements held out to immigrants under it were as follows.

1st.

That no grant of land should contain less than twenty acres.

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2nd.

INSTITUTION OF THE COLONIES.

Purchasers of land to pay one pound per acre. 3rd. That purchasers of land provide a passage to Vancouver Island for themselves and their families, if they have any; or be provided with a passage (if they prefer it) on paying for the same at a reasonable rate. 4th. That purchasers of larger quantities of land should pay the same price per acre, namely one pound, and should take out with them five single men, or three married couples, for every hundred acres.

5th. That all minerals, wherever found, should belong to the Company, who should have the right of digging for the same, compensation being made to the owner of the soil for any injury done to the surface; but that the owner should have the privilege of working for his own benefit any coal mine that might be on his land, on payment of a royalty of half a crown per ton.

6th. That the right of fishing at first proposed to be given to the Hudson's Bay Company, having been relinquished, every freeholder should enjoy the right of fishing; and that all the ports and harbours should be open and free to them, and to all nations either trading or seeking shelter therein.

The circular from which the above is taken, then makes provision for the establishment of places of public worship, and the maintenance of ministers of religion, a policy afterwards abandoned; and concludes with a proposal to form a colonial legislature combining the usual elements of governor, council, and assembly, with powers to enact laws and enforce taxes.

A programme so illiberal, so restrictive, and so detrimental to the memory of the colonial administration of Earl Grey, for ten years stopped the settlement of the country. Ultimately the grant was revoked, and on the 1st June 1859, Vancouver Island colony fell directly under the management of the Crown, previous

ALLEGED CAUSES OF NON-SETTLEMENT.

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to which date the exclusive right to trade from the Pacific to the Rocky Mountains, which the Hudson's Bay Company had before possessed, was withdrawn, and the colony of British Columbia instituted by the Act of August 2nd, 1858.

The obstacles which I shall now enumerate have been repeatedly assigned and accredited by the Government, as having hitherto prevented the successful development of these colonies*:——

1st, the attraction of the gold region of California; 2nd,—the high rate of wages in the colony and territories adjoining preventing settlement; 3rd, -the great distance from Great Britain, involving either a tedious voyage of five months and 17,000 miles, or the expense of the overland route by Panama or the plains; 4th, the high price of land; 5th,-Duties 4th,—the . averaging 24 per cent. levied on British goods in the neighbouring American ports.

*"The high rate of wages in Oregon and California, and the attraction of the gold districts in the gold country, have not only operated to prevent persons of capital settling in Vancouver Island, but have also obstructed the Hudson's Bay Company, and the Puget Sound Company, in their endeavours to bring land into cultivation, and provide means of subsistence for settlers."- Governor of H. B. Company to Secretary of State for the Colonies, Nov. 24, 1852.

"Its commerce, trammelled and met by restrictive duties on every side, its trade and resources remain undeveloped."— Governor of Vancouver Island's Address to Assembly, August 12, 1856.

"Causes over which the local government had no control, and which are too well known to need recapitulation, have hitherto prevented the settlement from acquiring that development, which its founders may have expected."- Secretary of State for the Colonies, to Governor of Vancouver Island, Feb. 28, 1856.

See also index to Report of Select Committee on the Hudson's Bay Company, under heading, "Vancouver Island: Causes of NonSettlement." "The distance from England, and the nearness of the Californian gold fields, have prevented the settlement and progress of the island." Also Blue Books on this subject, passim.

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THE REAL BAR TO SETTLEMENT STILL EXISTS.

And since, with the exception of No. 4, these impediments, if such, continue to exist, it will be well to examine into them separately: and I think it can be shown that the colonies of North West America have not been retarded at all to the extent supposed by the combination of causes alleged; but that the real bar to their development still exists in their utter isolation and absence of connection with each other; in which remark I include not Vancouver Island and British Columbia alone, but also Red River, and (why not?) Sascatchewan, all which should derive, from connection, with each other, the Canadas, and as a consequence with England, the same vitality, that Washington, Oregon, California, and the intervening states, derive from the chain of excellent communications by land that bind them to one another, and to the Eastern American States; and in the case of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, in the want as well of main lines of internal communication and of other works of a public nature, indispensable to the success of the first arrivals that from want of numbers it is impossible for these to procure by taxation the capital required to open up communications in a country so vast and wild, and endow it with the elements of success; but that if this capital were once obtained, and judiciously and honestly applied, success would attend the first adventurers, immigration on a large scale ensue, resulting in a prosperous, and therefore taxable population, sufficiently numerous in a short time to pay the interest of what I may term their national debt, and ultimately to discharge the debt itself, and to add to the power and commerce of England; that the requisite capital could be procured, and the benefits stated conferred, without trenching, to any great extent, upon the revenues of Great Britain; and I shall afterwards endeavour to in

OREGON STATE AND WASHINGTON TERRITORY.

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dicate the nature and extent of the works required for the purposes stated, and approximately the cost of them.

I demur to the first impediment, by adducing the parallel instances of Oregon and Washington. These states, which are notoriously not gold-producing, although samples may be found there, as in Vancouver Island, are nearer to California than the British settlements are, therefore obstacles Nos. 1 and 2 have all along applied to them more forcibly than to the latter. Oregon and Washington were formed into a territory by Act of Congress, dated August 14, 1848, and Great Britain commenced her colonies in January, 1849, so it may be said the start was a fair one. As to comparative natural advantages, even Americans admit the great superiority of those of the British settlements. Look at Oregon as its boundaries are now defined in point of physical aspect, every part of the coast is dangerous to navigation on account of the heavy surf continually beating against its shores; there is not a tolerable or accessible harbour in its whole length, its rivers are choked with sand-bars: in point of agricultural advantages, it certainly has its rich valleys, much in the way that British Columbia has, from the sea to the cascades, 80 to 150 miles; and within this tract is embraced the only valuable portion of the State. Within the valleys of the Willamette, Umqua, and Rogue Rivers, the farming population, and all the counties yet established, are concentrated. The tract from the Cascades to the Blue Mountains, will never be of use beyond some pastoral purposes, and from the Blue Mountains to the Rocky Mountains, has been justly characterised as wild, sterile, and impracticable; mountain ranges and isolated buttes; and unless in the immediate neighbourhood of the valleys of the rivers men