every factor, every clerk, is either an actual, or a prospective, stock- 

 holder. The hardships endured, the risks to life and health encoun- 

 tered, the pluck and devotion displayed by the young men employed 

 by this company, make a record the most remarkable in the history of 



In pleasing contrast to the greedy, grasping, and oft times unprin- 

 cipled actions of this great company, stands the fact that they have 

 always kept, strictly, agreements made with their men and have never, 

 I believe, broken a pledge made to the natives. Furthermore, they 



promising, has heen uniform and characterized hy good faith. 



In 1870, the Canadian Government acquired by purchase most of the 

 territory and jurisdiction of the Hudson's Bay Company, the latter 

 reserving only a certain amount of land. So that now this Hudson's 

 Bay region is open to all Canada for settlement, trade, or commerce, 

 and the reign of the giant monopoly is at an end. 



As long ago as 1812, attention was called to the importance of the 

 Hudson's Bay route — so-called — as aline for. commerce between the 

 Pacific Ocean and Europe, and between the north-western provinces of 



In 1848, Colonel M. H. Synge (then Lieutenant) of the British army, 

 published a small work on Canada, in which he suggested that this 

 might become in the future a route for commerce of great importance. 

 In lS'M, Prof. Hind favored it; in a paper which he read before the 

 Statistical Society of Canada. 



In 1878, Dr. Robert Bell, F. R. S., Assistant Director of the Geologi- 

 cal Survey of Canada, wrote an account of this route for the Minister 

 of the Interior Department of the Canadian Government. In 1881, the 

 same gentleman presented a paper to the Royal Geographical Society, 

 in which he discussed in a masterly manner the commercial import- 

 By these and other means public attention in Canada has been called 

 to the great importance of this Hudson's Bay route — if practicable — 

 not only as affording a quick and cheap outlet for the products of 



tween Japan and England. 



If we assume that the navigation of Hudson's Strait and Bay is pos- 

 sible for a long enough time each year for the purposes of commerce, 

 the immense importance of this line becomes manifest on reflection. 



