No. 3.] G. M. DAWSON — INDIANS OP CANADA. 159 



for commerce. No doubt some of them would make an improper 

 use of their liberty, but they would be few in number. Every- 

 where, and in all countries men may be found weak, purposeless, 

 and unwilling to understand their own interests ; but I can cer- 

 tify that the Abenakis generally are superior in intelligence to 

 the Canadians. I have remarked that nearly all those who have 

 left their native village, to go to live elsewhere free, have profited 

 by the change." Dr. Wilson himself remarks (in another 

 place) : — " The system of protection and pupilage under which, 

 from the most generous motives, the Indian has hitherto been 

 placed in the older provinces, has unquestionably been protracted 

 until, in some cases at least, it has become prejudicial in its in- 

 fluence. It has precluded him from acquiring property, marry- 

 ing on equal terms with the intruding race, and so transferring 

 his offspring to the common ranks." The Honorable Mr. Laird, 

 when Minister of the Interior, as the result of his enquiries in 

 connection with the Indian bill above referred to, speaks in the 

 following terms: — "Our Indian legislation generally rests on 

 the principle that the aborigines are to be kept in a condition of 

 tutelage, and treated as wards or children of the State. The 

 soundness of the principle I cannot admit. On the contrary, I 

 am firmly persuaded that the true interests of the aborigines and 

 of the State alike require that every effort should be made to aid 

 the red man in liftins; himself out of his condition of tutelag-e 

 and dependence, and that it is clearly our wisdom and our duty, 

 through education and every other means, to prepare him for a 

 higher civilization by encouraging him to assume the duties and 

 responsibilities of full citizenship." 



It is to be hoped that these enlightened views will be practi- 

 ticaliy carried out in the case of all the tribes throughout the 

 Dominion ; and that the Indian, freed from tutelage and raised 

 from dependence, may be induced to enter into such of the call- 

 ings of civilized life as may be most congenial to him, and may 

 thus become an element of strength and progress in the body 

 politic. He undoubtedly possesses qualities which fit him not 

 unequally to bear his part with the other races which enter into 

 the composition of our people, in building up the future great- 

 ness of the Dominion. 



