460 Our North Land. 



Of course these concessions, liberal in some particulars, come far 

 short of meeting Mr. Norquay's demands. HoweVer, it is thought 

 that they would have been adopted by the Legislature had it not 

 been for clause No. 7, which made them final and in full of all 

 claims. In the following June, 1884, the Legislature dealt with 

 these proposals, and adopted the following reply : — 



" Whereas this House, having fully considered the propositions of the 

 Federal Government regrets that the Federal Government have not seen 

 fit to accede to the requests of this House as presented by its delegates. 



" It is evident that the spirit of The British North America Act is 

 that each Province admitted into Confederation, as well as those originally 

 confederated, should be placed on the same status, more especially with 

 reference to the control of the public lands within each Province being 

 vested in such Province. This was carried out in the instance of Prince 

 Edward Island, which had no public lands, but was allowed the sum of 

 $800,000 to enable her to acquire the lands held by private parties within 

 the Province ;, but in Manitoba on its admission into Confederation there 

 were public lands, and they should have become vested in the Province, as 

 was the case in the other Provinces of the Dominion. 



" The repetition of the statement, that the Dominion Governmen 

 having purchased at a large price in cash all the rights, titles, and interests 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company in and to the territory out of which the 

 Province of Manitoba has been formed entitles them to consider Manitoba 

 as having a different status in Confederation from the other Provinces, is 

 invidious, and this House feels that the time has arrived when the repeti- 

 tion of such a statement should cease — so far as the Hudson's Bay Company 

 is concerned. They never established any claim to a title to the lands, 

 except those to which Lord Selkirk had extinguished the Indian title, and 

 which were subsequently re-purchased from his successors by the Hudson's 

 Bay Company. On the contrary, the settlers at Pointe du Chien settled 

 there under the Homestead law adopted by the Council of the Assiniboia, 

 irrespective of the Hudson's Bay Company. 



" The extinction of the Hudson's Bay title cannot be viewed by this 

 House in any other light than that of the purchase from the Hudson's Bay 

 Company of certain rights which were held by that Company to the 

 detriment of the people of Canada, and which were extinguished by the 

 Government thereof in the same way that in the other Provinces they 

 have extinguished other rights created in former ages, and which obstructed 

 the progress and development of the people. 



" The construction of the Canadian Pacific railway, a line running from 



