way as to prevent the Indian tribes within their borders from molesting
the Canadian frontier; while, on the other hand, those who have turned
their attention to that quarter of the world must have seen that, from
Oregon to Florida, for these last thirty years or more, there has been
a constant Indian war going on between the natives of American
territory, on the one side, and the Indian tribes on the other. Now, I
fear very much that if the occupation of the Hudson's Bay Company, in
what is called the Hudson's Bay territory, were to cease, our fate in
Canada might be just as it is with Americans in the border settlements
of their territory."

Mr. Ross advocated a railway to the Pacific, and he showed good
practical reasons for it. Failing a railway, he claimed a "good, broad
open road." On the question of renewed competition in the fur trade, he
added, "I believe there are certain gentlemen at Toronto very anxious
to get up a second North-West Company, and I dare say it would result
in something like the same difficulties which the last North-West
Company created. I should be sorry to see them succeed. I think it
would do a great deal of harm, creating further difficulties in Canada,
which I do not desire to see created."

"Certain gentlemen at Toronto" have ever been ready to despoil any old
and successful undertaking.

Mr. Gladstone's resolutions, as proposed at the end of the evidence,
were negatived by the casting vote of the chairman, Mr. Labouchere, the
numbers being 7 and 7. Mr. Gladstone proposed that the country capable
of colonization should be withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the
Hudson's Bay Company; while the country incapable of colonization
should remain under that jurisdiction. And, having thus disposed of any