10 



making progress. It was thirty years ago last summer since 

 Lieutenant-Governor Morris and I went out to make Treaty 4 

 at Qu'Appelle Lakes. Thirty years, though a large proportion 

 of one man's allotted span, is but a short period in the evolu- 

 lution of a race. Most of these Indians which met us at 

 Qu'Appelle in 1874 were wild, painted Indians, having buffalo 

 robes or blankets around their shoulders, and a majority of 

 the men with only Nature's leggings. 



In the year 1903-4, or just thirty years afterwards, the 

 Indians within this Treaty, 4,482 in number, raised 90,979 

 bushels of wheat and 58,000 bushels of oats ; and the total 

 value of their farm produce, including hay, was $138,798. 

 They had also 5,075 head of horned cattle, their live stock of 

 all kinds being valued at $226,888. 



The Blackfoot Indians, with whom Treaty 7 was made in 

 1877, showed even more of the wild Indian than the Crees and 

 others of Treaty 4, yet last year the Blackfoot tribes, with 

 their Stony neighbors, had 8,708 head of cattle, which, along 

 with their ponies and other live stock, were valued at 

 $268,944. 



This industrial advancement gives promise that in another 

 decade or two these Indians will have solved the question of 

 self-support ; but .it will doubtless take two or three genera- 

 tions before they become really civilized. 



I have shown that it has cost a great deal of patience, tact 

 and money to make and carry out the Northwest Indian 

 Treaties. But this great country is well worth it all. The 

 Treaties saved us from Indian wars, for the Indians were not- 

 the instigators of the Saskatchewan rebellion in 1885. They 

 have helped to make way for the peaceful march of the settler 

 all over the prairies of the West, and to enable him to cultivate 

 Ms broad acres in safety. 



When I came to Winnipeg in 1874, it was merelv a village 

 of less than 2,000 inhabitants. On our journey to Ou'Appelle 

 we passed the last white settler's clearing" at Burnside, about 

 ten miles beyond Portage la Prairie. We, however, saw 

 several parties of new-comers moving West, whose journeying 

 reminded me of Whittier's lines — 



I hear the tread of pioneers, 



Of nations yet to be ; 

 The first low wash of waves where soon 



Shall roll a human sea. 



