IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 m §2^ 
 
 " IIIIM 
 
 M 
 
 1 2.0 
 
 1.8 
 
 
 1.25 1.4 
 
 1.6 
 
 
 ^ 6" — 
 
 
 ► 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
 \ 
 
 
 \\ 
 
 4\^ 
 
 4> '' 
 
 i^ ^^ 
 
 
 ^1>^ 
 
 ^' 
 
 % 
 
 V 
 
 
fr' mp.< 
 
 Q' 
 
 w, 
 
 CIHM/ICMH 
 
 Microfiche 
 
 Series. 
 
 CIHM/ICMH 
 Collection de 
 microfiches. 
 
 Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut canadien de microreproductions historiqites 
 
Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques 
 
 The institute has attempted to obtain the best 
 original copy available for filming. Features of this 
 copy which may be bibliographically unique, 
 which may alter any of the images in the 
 reproduction, or which may significantly change 
 the usual method of filming, are checked below. 
 
 Q 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 Coloured covers/ 
 Couverture de couleur 
 
 I I Covers damaged/ 
 
 Couverture endommagde 
 
 Covers restored and/or laminated/ 
 Couverture restaurde et/ou pelliculde 
 
 Cover title missing/ 
 
 Le titre de couverture manque 
 
 Coloured maps/ 
 
 Cartes gdographiques en couleur 
 
 Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ 
 Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleun ou noire) 
 
 Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ 
 Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur 
 
 Bound with other material/ 
 Relid avec d'autres documents 
 
 D 
 
 Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion 
 along interior margin/ 
 
 La reliure serr^e peut causer de i'ombre ou de la 
 distortion le long de la marge intdrieure 
 
 Blank leaves added during restoration may 
 appear within the text. Whenever possible, these 
 have been omitted from filming/ 
 II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajouties 
 lors dune restauration apparaissent dans le texte, 
 mais, lorsque ceia dtait possible, ces pages n'ont 
 pas 6t6 film6es. 
 
 Additional comments:/ 
 Commentaires suppl6mentaires; 
 
 L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire 
 qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details 
 de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du 
 point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier 
 une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une 
 modification dans la mdthode normale de filmage 
 sont indiquds ci-dessous. 
 
 I I Coloured pages/ 
 
 D 
 
 Pages de couleur 
 
 Pages damaged/ 
 Pages endommagdes 
 
 Pages restored and/oi 
 
 Pages restaurdes et/ou pellicul6es 
 
 Pages discoloured, stained or foxei 
 Pages ddcolordes, tachetdes ou piqudes 
 
 Pages detached/ 
 Pages d6tach6es 
 
 Showthrough/ 
 Transparence 
 
 Quality of prir 
 
 Quality indgale de I'impression 
 
 Includes supplementary materit 
 Comprend du material suppldmentaire 
 
 Only edition available/ 
 Seuie Mition disponible 
 
 I I Pages damaged/ 
 
 I I Pages restored and/or laminated/ 
 
 I I Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ 
 
 I I Pages detached/ 
 
 I I Showthrough/ 
 
 I I Quality of print varies/ 
 
 I I Includes supplementary material/ 
 
 I I Only edition available/ 
 
 Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata 
 slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to 
 ensure the best possible image/ 
 Les pages totalement ou partiellement 
 obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, 
 etc., ont 6t6 filmies A nouveau de fa9on d 
 obtenir la meilleure image possible. 
 
 7 
 
 s 
 T 
 
 VI 
 
 ^ 
 
 d 
 
 e 
 b 
 ri 
 r< 
 rr 
 
 This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ 
 
 Ce document est fiimd au taux de reduction indiqu6 ci-dessous. 
 
 10X 
 
 r 
 
 14X 
 
 18X 
 
 T 
 
 22X 
 
 12X 
 
 16X 
 
 20X 
 
 28X 
 
 30X 
 
 24X 
 
 28X 
 
 32X 
 
The copy filmed here has been reproducer! thanks 
 to the generosity of: 
 
 Library Division 
 
 Provincial Archives of British Columbia 
 
 The images appearing here are the best quality 
 possible considering the condition and legibility 
 of the original copy and in keeping with the 
 filming contract specifications. 
 
 Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed 
 beginning with the front cover and ending on 
 the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All 
 other original copies are filmed beginning on the 
 first page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, and ending on the last page with a printed 
 or illustrated impression. 
 
 The last recorded frame on each microfiche 
 shall contain the symbol — ^ (meaning "CON- 
 TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), 
 whichever applies. 
 
 Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at 
 different reduction ratios. Those too large to be 
 entirely included in one exposure are filmed 
 beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to 
 right and top to bottom, as many frames as 
 required. The following diagrams illustrate the 
 method: 
 
 L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grAce A la 
 gAnArositA de: 
 
 Library Division 
 
 Provincial Archives of British Columbia 
 
 Les images suivantes ont 6tA reproduites avec le 
 plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et 
 de la netiet6 de I'exemplaiie film6, et en 
 conformity avec les conditions du contrat de 
 filmage. 
 
 Les exemplaires onginaux dont la couverture en 
 papier est imprimde sont film^s en commengant 
 par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la 
 dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second 
 plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires 
 originaux sont filmis en commengant par la 
 premidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par 
 la dernidre page qui comporte une telle 
 empreinte. 
 
 Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la 
 dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le 
 cas: le symbole — ^ signifie 'A SUIVRE ", le 
 symbole V signifie "FIN". 
 
 Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre 
 film6s d des taux de reduction diff^rents. 
 Lorsque la document est trop grand pour Stre 
 reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film^ d partir 
 de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche & droits, 
 et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre 
 d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants 
 illustrent la mdthode. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
\AiLup 
 
 Cj> 
 
 .i- 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 OF HIS EXCELLENCY 
 
 THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA, 
 
 ON THE SUBJECT OF 
 
 ITHE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE DOMINION GOVERN- 
 MENT AND BRITISH COLUMBIA, 
 
 IN RESPECT TO THE 
 
 CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 
 
 iDblivbrhd at Government House, Victoria, Sept. 20th, 18T6, 
 TO A Deputation op the Reception Committee. 
 
 VICTORIA : 
 PBIKTED BV RICHARD WOLFENDEN, GOVERNMENT 1>RINT£R. 
 1876. 
 
D 
 
 V 
 
 r 
 
 ^ 
 
ADDEESS 
 
 07 HIS EXCELLENCY 
 
 
 THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA, 
 
 ON THE SUBJECT OF 
 
 THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE DOMINION GOVERN- 
 MENT AND BRITISH COLUMBIA, 
 
 IN RESPECT TO THE 
 
 CAV^ADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. 
 
 DKUVaEBD AT GOVERNMENT HOUSB, VICTORIA, SbPT. 20TH, 1876, 
 
 TO A Deputation of the Reception Oommittbb. 
 
 VIOTOBIA : 
 PBINTEB BT RIOHABD WOLVKIDlir, OOVXRIIIIlire PSINflBS 
 1876. 
 

 PROVINCIAL UBRAm,- 
 ^'fCTORlA. B. C. 
 
A.DDTIESS, 
 
 Gentlemen : — I am indeed very glad to have an oppor- 
 tunity before quitting British Columbia of thanking 
 you, and through you the citizens of Victoria, not only 
 for the general kindness and courtesy 1 have met with 
 during my residence amongst you ; but especially for 
 the invitation to the banquet with which you have 
 honoured me. I regret extremely that my engage- 
 ments did not permit me to accept this additional proof 
 of your hospitality ; but my desire to see as much as 
 possible of the country, and my other engagements, 
 forced me most reluctantly to decline it. I shall, how- 
 ever, have a final opportunity of mingling with your 
 citizens at the entertainment arranged for me at Beacon 
 Hill this afternoon, to which I am looking forward 
 with the greatest ^ leasure. Perhaps, gentlemen, I may 
 be also permitted tc take advantage of this occasion to 
 express to you the oatisfaction and enjoyment 1 have 
 derived from my recent progress through such portions 
 of the Province as I have been able to reach within 
 the short period left at my disposal. I am well aware 
 I have visited but a small proportion of your domains, 
 and that there are important centres of population 
 from which I have been kept aloof. More especially 
 have 1 to regret my inability to reach Cariboo, the 
 chief theatre of your mining industry and the home of 
 a community with whose feelings, wishes, and senti- 
 ments it would have been very advantageous for me 
 to have become personally acquainted. Still by dint 
 of considerable exertion I have traversed the entire 
 coast of British Columbia from its southern extremity 
 to Alaska. 1 have penetrated to the head of Bute 
 Inlet. 1 have examined Seymour Narrows, and the 
 other channels which intervene between the head of 
 Bute Inlet and Vancouver Island. I have looked into 
 the mouth of Dean's Canal, and passed along the en- 
 
 
trance of Gardner's Channel. I have visited Mr. Dun- 
 can's wonderful settlement at Metlakatlah, and the 
 interesting Methodist mission at Fort Simpson ; and 
 have thus been epabled to realize what scenes of prim- 
 itive peace and innocence, of idylic beauty, and mate- 
 rial comfort can be presented by the stalwart men and 
 comely maidens of an Indian community under the 
 wise administration of a judicious and devoted Chris- 
 tian missionary. I have passed across the intervening 
 Sound of Queen Charlotte Island to Skidegate, and 
 studied with wonder the strange characteristics of a 
 Hydah village with its forest of heraldic pillars. I have 
 been presented with the sinister opportunity of a 
 descent upon a tribe of our Pagan savages in the very 
 midst of their drunken orgies and barbarous rites, and 
 after various other explorations I have had the privil- 
 ege of visiting, under very gratifying circumstances, 
 the Royal City of New W4^minster. Taking from 
 that spot a new departure, we proceeded up the valley 
 of the Praser where the river has cloven its way 
 through the granite ridges and bulwarks of the Cas- 
 cade range, and along a road of such admirable con- 
 struction, considering the engineering difficulties of the 
 line and the modest resources of the colony when it 
 was built, as does the greatest credit to the able ad- 
 ministrator who directed its execution. Passing thence 
 into the open valleys and rounded eminences beyond, 
 we had an opportunity of appreciating the pastoral 
 resources and agricultural capabilities of what is known 
 as the bunch grass country. It is needless to say that 
 wherever we went we found the same kindness, the 
 same loyalty, the same honest pride in their country 
 and its institutions which characterize the English 
 race throughout the world, while Her Majesty's In- 
 dian subjects on their spirited horses, which the ladies 
 of their families seemed to bestride with as much ease 
 and grace as their husbands and brothers, notwith- 
 standing the embarrassment of one baby on the pom- 
 mel and another on the crupper, met us everywhere in 
 large numbers and testified in their untutored fashion 
 their genuine loyalty and devotion to tiieir White 
 Mother. Having journeyed Eastward as far as 
 
Kamloops and admired from a lofty erainonce in its 
 neighbourhood what seemed an almost intermina})le 
 prospect of grazing lands and valleys susceptible of 
 cultivation, we were forced with much reluctance to 
 turn our faces homewards to Victoria. And now that 
 I am back it may, perhaps, interest you to learn what 
 arc the impressions I have derived during my journoj''. 
 Well, I may frankly tell yo\i that I think British 
 Columbia a glorious Province) — a Province which 
 Canada should be proud to possess, and whose asso- 
 ciation with the Dominion she ought to regard as the 
 crowning triumph of Federation. Such a spectacle as 
 its coast line presents is not to be paralleled by any 
 country in the world. Day after day for a whole 
 week, in a vessel of nearly 2000 tons, we threaded an 
 interminable labyrinth of watery lan(?s and reaches 
 that wound endlessly in and out of a network of 
 islands, promontories, and peninsulas for thousands of 
 miles, unruffled by the slightest swell from the adjoin- 
 ing ocean, and presenting at every turn an ever shift- 
 ing combination of rock, verdure, forest, glacier, and 
 snow capped mountain of unrivalled grandeur and 
 beauty. When it is remembered that this wonderful 
 system of navigation, equally well adapted to the 
 largest line of battle-ship and the frailest canoe, fringes 
 the entire seaboard of your Province and communicates 
 at points sometimes more than a hundred miles from the 
 coast, with a multitude of valleys stretching eastward 
 into the interior, while at the same time it is furnished 
 with innumerable harbours on either hand, one is lost 
 in admiration at the facilities for inter-communication 
 which are thus provided for the future inhabitants of 
 this wonderful region. It is true at the present mo- 
 ment they lie unused except by the Indian fisherman 
 and villager, but the day will surely come when the 
 rapidly diminishing stores of pine upon this continent 
 will be still further exhausted, and when the nations 
 of Europe as well as of America will undoubtedly be 
 obliged to recur to British Columbia for a material of 
 which you will by that time be the principal depos- 
 itory. Already from an adjoining port a large trade is 
 being done in lumber with Great Britain, Europe, 
 
\ 
 
 Australia, and South America, and I venture to think 
 that ere long the ports of the United States will per- 
 force be thrown open to your traffic. 1 had the plea- 
 sure of witnessing the overthrow by the axes of your 
 woodmen of one of your forest giants, that towered to 
 the height of 250 feet above our heads, and whose 
 rings bore witness that it dated its birth from the 
 reign of the Fourth Edward; and where it grew, and 
 for thousands of miles along the coast beyond it, mil- 
 lions of its contemporaries are awaiting the same fate. 
 With such facilities of access as I have described to 
 the heart and centre of your various forest lands, 
 where almost every tree can be rolled Irom the spot 
 upon which it grew to the ship which is to transfer it to 
 its destination, it would be difficult to over-estimate 
 the opportunities of industrial development thus indi- 
 cated ; and to prove that I am not over-sanguine in my 
 congectures I will read you a letter recently received 
 from the British Admiralty by Mr. Innes, the Superin- 
 tendent of the Dockyard at Esquimalt : — 
 
 " From various causes spars from Canada, the former main 
 source of supply, have not of late years been obtainable, and the 
 trade in New Zealand spars for top-masts has also completely died 
 away. Of late years the sole source of supply has been the casual 
 cargoes of Oregon spars, imported from time to time, and from 
 these the wants of the service have been met. But my Lords feel 
 that this is not a mode to be depended upon, more especially for 
 the larger sized spars." 
 
 Their Lordships then proceed to order Mr. Innes 
 to make arrangements for the transhipment for the 
 dockyards of Great Britain of the specified number of 
 Douglas jDine which will be required by the Service 
 during the ensuing year, — and what England does in 
 this direction other nations will feel themselves com- 
 pelled to do as well. But I have learnt a further lesson j 
 I have had opportunities of inspecting some of the spots 
 where your mineral wealth is stored, and here again 
 the ocean stands your friend, the mouths of the coal- 
 pits I have visited almost opening into the hulls of the 
 vessels which are to convey their contents across the 
 ocean. When it is further remembered that inexhaust- 
 ible supplies of iron ore are found in juxtaposition with 
 
think 
 II per- 
 plea- 
 your 
 ed to 
 vvhose 
 n the 
 , and 
 mi], 
 fate, 
 d to 
 ands, 
 spot 
 'it to 
 mate 
 indi- 
 ) my 
 
 ived 
 oi'in- 
 
 7 
 
 your coal, no one can blame you for regarding the 
 beautiful Island on which you live us having boon 
 espeeiuliy favoured by Providence in the distribution 
 of its natural gifts. But still more precious minerals 
 than either coal or iron enhance the value of your pos- 
 sessions. As we skirted the banks of the Fraser wo 
 were met at every turn by the evider ^ of its extra- 
 ordinary supplies of fish ; but scarcer less frequent 
 were the signs afforded us of the froMon treasures it 
 rolls down, nor need any traveller I'link 't strange to 
 sen tlo Indian fisherman hauling out a sal uon on to 
 the sands, fiom whence the miiior besid* him is sifting 
 the sparkling ore. But the signs of miuoral wealth which 
 may happen to have attracted my personal attention i\rp> 
 as nothing, I understand, to what is exhibited in Car- 
 iboo, Cassiar, and along the valley of the Stickeen, and 
 most grieved am I to think that I have not had time to 
 testify by my presence amongst them the sympathy I 
 feel with the adventurous prospector and the miner in 
 their arduous enterprises. I had also the satisfaction 
 of having pointed out to me where various lodes of 
 silver only await greater facilities of access to be work- 
 ed with profit and advantage. But perhaps the greatest 
 surprise in store for us was the discovery, on our exit 
 from the pass through the Cascade range, of the noble 
 expanse of pastoral lands and the long vistas of fertile 
 valleys which opened up on every side as we advanced 
 through the country ; and which, as I could see with 
 my own eyes from various heights we traversed, ex- 
 tended in rounded upland slopes or in gentle depres- 
 sions for hundreds of miles to the foot of the Eocky 
 Mountains, proving, after all, that the mountain ranges 
 which frown along your c^ast no more accurately in- 
 dicate the nature of the territory they guard than is 
 the wall of breaking surf that roars along a tropic 
 beach identical with the softly undulating sea that 
 glitters in the sun beyond. But you will very likely say 
 to me, of what service to us are these resources which 
 yon describe, if they and we are to remain locked up in 
 a distant and at present inaccessible corner of the 
 Dominion, cut off by a trackless waste of intervening 
 territory from all intercourse, whether of a social or of 
 
a commercial character, with those with whom we are 
 politically united ? Well, gentlemen, 1 can only an- 
 swer : Of comparatively little use, or at all events of 
 far less profit than they would immediately become, 
 were the Eailway upon whose construction you natu- 
 rally counted when you entered into Confederation 
 once completed. But here 1 feel I am touching upon 
 dangerous ground. You are well aware from the first 
 moment I set foot in the Province I was careful to in- 
 form everyone who approached me that 1 came here as 
 the Governor-General of the Dominion, the Eepresen- 
 tative of Her Majesty, exactly in the same way as I 
 had passed through other Provinces of the Dominion, 
 in order to make acquaintance with the people, their 
 wants, wishes, and aspirations, and to learn as much as 
 I could in regard to the physical features, capabilities, 
 and resources of the Province; that I had not come on 
 a diplomatic mission, or as a messenger, or charged 
 with any announcement, either from the Imperial or 
 from the Dominion Government. This statement I beg 
 now most distinctly to repeat. Nor should it be imag- 
 ined I have come either to persuade or coax you into 
 any line of action which you may not consider condu- 
 cive to your own interests, or to make any new pro- 
 mises on behalf of my Government, or renew any old 
 ones ; least of all have I a design to force upon you 
 any further modification of those arrangements which 
 were arrived a in 1874 between the Provincial and the 
 Dominion Governments under the auspices of Lord 
 Carnarvon. Should any business of this kind ever have 
 to be perfected, it will have to be done in the usual con- 
 stitutional manner through the Secretary of State. But 
 though I have thought it well thus unmistakably* and 
 effectually to guard against my journey to the Province 
 being misinterpreted, there is I admit one mission with 
 which I am charged — a mission that is strictly within 
 my f ULCtions to fulfil — ^namely — the mission of testify- 
 ing by my presence amongst you and by my patient 
 and respectful attention to everything which may be 
 said to me, that the Government and the entire people 
 of Canada, without distinction of party, are most 
 sincei-ely desirous of cultivating with you those friendly 
 
9 
 
 and affectionate relations, upon the existence of which 
 must depend the future harmony and solidity of our 
 common Domir^on. Gentlemen, this mission I think 
 you will admit I have done my best to fulfil. I think 
 you will bear me witness that I have been inaccessible 
 to no one, that I have shown neither impatience nor in- 
 difference during the conversations I have had with 
 you, and that it would have been impossible for any 
 one to have exhibited more anxiety thoroughly to un- 
 derstand your views. I think it will be further admit- 
 ted that I have done this, without in the slightest de- 
 gree seeking to disturb or embarrass the march of your 
 domestic politics. I have treated the exit:ting Ministers 
 as it became me to treat the responsible advisers of the 
 Crown in this locality, and I have shown that deference 
 to their opponents which is always due to Her Majesty's 
 loyal opposition. Nay, further, I think it must have , 
 been observed that I have betrayed no disposition either 
 to create or foment in what might be termed, though 
 most incorrectly, the interest of Canada, any discord 
 or contrariety of interest between the Mainland and * 
 the Island. Such a mode of procedure would have 
 been most unworthy ; for no true friend of the Domin- 
 ion should be capable of any other object or desire than 
 to give universal satisfaction to the Province as a whole. 
 A settlement of the pending controversy would indeed 
 be most lamely concluded if it left either of the sections 
 into which your community is geographically divided, 
 unsatisfied. Let me then assure you on the part of the 
 Canadian Government, and on the part of the Canadian 
 peoplo at large, that there is nothing they desire more 
 earnestly or more fervently than to know and feel that 
 you arc one with them in heart, thought, and feeling, 
 Canada would indeed be dead to the most self-evident 
 considerations of self-interest and to the first instincts 
 of national pride if she did not regard with satisfaction 
 her connection with a Province so richly endowed by 
 Nature, inhabited by a community so replete with 
 British loyalty and pluck, while it afforded hev the 
 means of expending her confines and the outlets of her 
 commerce to the wide Pacific and the countries beyond. 
 It is true circumstances have arisen to create an un- -> 
 
10 
 
 friendly and hostile feeling in your minds against 
 Canada. You consider yourselves injured, and you cer- 
 tainly have been disappointed. Far be it from me to 
 belittle your grievancea, or to speak slightingly of your 
 complaints. Happily my independent position relieves 
 me from the necessity of engaging with you in any ir- 
 ritating discussion upon the various points which are 
 in controversy between this Colony and the Dominion 
 Government. On the contrary, I am ready to make 
 several admissions. I don't suppose that in any part of 
 
 > Canada will it be denied that you have been subjected 
 both to anxiety and uncertainty on points which were 
 of vital importance to you. From first to last since the 
 idea of a Pacific Railway was originated, things, to use 
 a homely phrase, have gone "contrairy" with it, and 
 with everybody connected with it, and you in common 
 with many other persons have suftered in many ways. 
 But though happily it is no part of my duty to pronounce 
 judgment in these matters, or to approve, or blame, or 
 criticise the conduct of anyone concerned, I think that 
 I can render both Canada and British Columbia some 
 service by speaking to certain matters of fact which 
 have taken place within my own immediate cognizance, 
 and by thus removing from your minds certain wrong 
 impressions in regard to the matters of fact, which have 
 
 X undoubtedly taken deep root there. Now, gentlemen, 
 in discharging this task — I may almost call it this duty 
 — I am sure my observations will be received by those 
 I see around me in a candid and loyal spirit, and that 
 the heats and passions which have been engendered by 
 these unhappy dijfferences will not prove an impediment 
 to a calm consideration of what I am about to say, more 
 especially as it will be my endeavour to avoid wounding 
 any susceptibilities, or forcing upon your attention 
 views or opinions which may be ungrateful to you. 
 ^ Of course I well understand that the gravamen of the 
 charge against the Canadian Government, is that it has 
 failed to fulfil its treaty engagements. Those engage- 
 ments were embodied in a solemn agreement which was 
 ratified by the respective Legislatures of the contract- 
 ing parties, who were at the time perfectly independent 
 of each other, and I admit they thus acquired all the 
 
11 
 
 characteristics of an international treaty. The terms of 
 that treaty were (to omit the minor items) that Canada 
 undertook to secure, within two years from the date of 
 the union, the simultaneous commencement at cither 
 end of a railway which was to connect the seaboard of 
 British Columbia with the railway system of the Do- 
 minion, and that such railway should be completed 
 within ten years from the date of union in 1871. We 
 are now in 1876. Five years have elapsed, and the 
 work of construction even at one end can be said to 
 have only just begun. Undoubtedly under these cir- 
 cumstances everyone must allow that Canada has failed 
 to fulfil her treaty obligations towards this Province, 
 but unfortunately Canada has been accused not only 
 of failing to accomplish her undertakings, but of what 
 is a very different thing, — a wilful breach of faith in 
 having neglected to do so. "Well, let us consider for a 
 moment whether this very serious assertion is true. 
 What was the state of things when the bargain was 
 made ? At that time everything in Canada was pros- 
 perous : her finances were flourishing, the discovery of 
 the Great North West, so to speak, had inflamed her 
 imagination; above all things railway enterprise in the 
 United States and genorally on this continent was being 
 developed to an astounding extent. One trans-conti- 
 nental railway had been successfully executed, and 
 several others on the same gigantic scale were being 
 projected; in fact it had come to be considered 
 that a railway could be flung across the Eocky 
 Mountains as readily as across a hay field, and the 
 observations of those who passed from New York and 
 San Francisco did not suggest any extraordinary 
 obstacles to undeitakings of this description. Unfortu- 
 nately one element in the calculation was left entirely 
 out of account, and that was the comparative ignorance 
 which prevailed in regard to the mountain ranges and 
 the mountain passes which intervened between the 
 Hudson Bay Company's possessions and our Western 
 Coast. In the United States, for years and years, 
 troops of emigrants had passed Westward to Salt Lake 
 City, to Sacramento, and to the Golden Gate; every 
 track *'nd trail through the mountains was wayworn 
 
 ■^ 
 
12 
 
 and well known: the location of a line in that neigh- 
 bourhood was pre-determined by the experience of 
 persons already well acquainted with the locality. 
 Eut in our case the trans-continental passes were 
 sparse and unfrequented, and from an engineering 
 point of view may be said to have been absolutely un- 
 known. It was under these circumstances that Canada 
 undertook to commence her Pacific Kailway in two 
 years, and to finish it in ten. In doing this she un- 
 doubtedly pledged herself to that which was a physical 
 impossibility, for the moment the engineers peered 
 over the Rocky Mountains into your Province they 
 saw at on'^o that before any one passage through the 
 devious range before them could be pronounced the 
 best, an amount of preliminary surveying would have 
 to be undertaken which it would require several years 
 to complete. Now thero is a legal motto which says 
 nemo teneatur ad impossible, and I would submit to you 
 that under the circumstances I have mentioned, how- 
 ever great the default of Canada, she need not 
 necessarily have been guilty of any wilful breach of 
 faith. I myself am quite convmced that when Canada 
 ratified this bargain with you she acted in perfect good 
 faith and fully believed that she would accomplish her 
 promise, if not within ten years, at all events within 
 such a sufficiently reasonable period as would satisfy 
 your requirements. The mistake she made was in 
 being too sanguine in her calculations, but remember, 
 a portion of the blame for concluding a bargain im- 
 possible of accomplishment cannot be confined to one 
 only of the parties to it. The mountains which have 
 proved our stumbling block were your own mountains, 
 and within your own territory, and however deeply an 
 impartial observer might sympathize with you in the 
 miscarriage of the two time terms of the compact, one 
 of which, — namely as to the commencement of the line 
 in two years from 1871 — has failed, and the other of 
 which, namely, its completion in ten, must fail, it is im- 
 possible to forget that yourselves are by no means 
 without responsibility for such a result. It is quite 
 true — in what I must admit to be a most generous 
 spirit — ^you intimated in various ways that you did not 
 
18 
 
 desire to hold Canada too strictly to the letter of her 
 engagements as to time. Your expectations in this 
 respect were stated by your late Lieutenant-Governor, 
 Mr. Trutch, very fairly and explicitly, although a very 
 unfair use has been made of his words, and 1 have no 
 doubt that if unforeseen circumstances had not inter- 
 vened, you would have exhibited as much patience as . 
 could have been expected of you. But a serious crisis 
 supervened in the political career of Canada. Sir John 
 Macdonald resigned office, and Mr. Mackenzie acceded 
 to power, and to all the responsibilities incurred by 
 Canada in respect to you and your Province. Now 
 it is asserted, and I imagine with truth, that Mr. 
 Mackenzie and his political friends had always been , 
 opposed to many portions of Canada's bargain with / 
 British Columbia. It therefore came to be considered 
 in this Province that the new Government was an 
 enemy to the Pacific Eailway. But I believe this to 
 have been and to be a complete misapprehension. I 
 believe the Pacific Railway has no better friend in 
 Canada than Mr. Mackenzie, and that he was only 
 opposed to the time terms in the bargain because he 
 believed them impossible of accomplishment, and that 
 a conscientious endeavour to fulfil them would un- 
 necessarily and ruinously increase the financial expendi- 
 ture of the country, and in both these opinions Mr. Mac- 
 kenzie was undoubtedly right. With the experience we 
 now possess, and of course it is easy to be wise after 
 t'^' event, no one would dream of saying that the 
 liailway could have been surveyed, located, and built 
 within the period named, or that any Company who 
 might undertake to build the line within that period 
 would not have required double or treble the bonus 
 that would have been sufficient had construction been 
 arranged for at a more leisurely rate, but surely it 
 would be both ungenerous and unreasonable for 
 British Columbia to entertain any hostile feelings 
 towards Mr. Mackenzie on this account, nor is he to bo 
 blamed in my opinion if on entering office in so unex- 
 pected a manner he took time to consider the course 
 which he would pursue in regard to his mode of dealing 
 with a question of such enormous importance. His i 
 
u 
 
 
 position was undoubtedly a very embarrassing one; his 
 Government had inherited responsibilities which he 
 knew, and which the country had cause to know, could 
 not be discharged. Already British Columbia had 
 begun to cry out for the fulfilment of the bargain, and 
 that at the very time that Canada had come to the 
 conclusion that the relaxation of some of its conditions 
 was necessary. Out of such a condition of affairs it 
 was almost impossible but that there should arise in 
 the first place delay — for all changes of Government 
 necessarily check the progress of public business, — and 
 in the next, friction, controversy, and collision between 
 the Province and the Dominion. Happily it is not 
 necessary that I should follow the course of that 
 quarrel or discuss the various points which were then 
 contested. You cannot expect me to make any ad- 
 missions in respect to the course my Ministers may 
 have thought it right to pursue, nor would it be 
 gracious upon my part to criticise the action of your 
 Province during this painful period. Out of the alter- 
 cation which then ensued there issued under the 
 auspices of Lord Carnarvon, a settlement; and when 
 an agreement has been arrived at, the sooner the inci- 
 dents connected with the conflict which preceded it 
 are forgotten, the better. Here then we have arrived 
 at a new era; the former laches of Canada, if any such 
 there bad been, are condoned, and the two time terms 
 of the treaty are relaxed on the one part, while on the 
 other certain specific obligations were superadded to 
 the main article in the original bargain : that is to say 
 — again omitting minor items — ^the Province agreed to 
 the Pacific Eailway being completed in 16 years from 
 1874, and to its being begun " as soon as the surveys 
 shall have been completed,", instead of at a fixed 
 date, while the Dominion Government undertook to 
 construct at once a Eailway from Esquimalt to Nanai- 
 mo, to hurry forward the surveys with the utmost 
 
 Eossible dispatch, and as .:oon as construction should 
 ave begun, to spend two millions a year in the prose- 
 cution of the work. I find that in this part of the world 
 these arrangements have come to be known as the "Car- 
 narvon Terms." It is a very convenient designation, and 
 
IS 
 
 I am quite content to adopt it on one condition, namely, 
 that Lord Carnarvon is not to be saddled with any of 
 the original responsibility with regard to any of these 
 terms but one. The main body of the terms are Mr. 
 Mackenzie's; that is to say, Mr. Mackenzie proffered; 
 the Nanaimo and Esquimalt Eailway, the telegraph 
 line, the waggon road and the annual expenditure. AH 
 that Lord Carnarvon did was to suggest that the 
 proposed expenditure should be two millions instead of 
 one and a half millions, and that a time limit should be 
 added. But, as you are well a:vare, this last condition 
 was necessarily implied in the preceding one relating 
 to the annual expenditure, for once committed to that 
 expenditure Canada would in self defence be obliged to 
 hasten the completion of the line in ordi^ to render 
 reproductive the capital she sunk as quickly as 
 possible. It is therefore but just to Lord Carnarvon 
 that he should be relieved from the responsibility of 
 having been in any way the inventor of what are 
 known as the " Carnarvon Terms." Lord Carnarvon 
 merely did what every arbitrator would do under the 
 circumstances ; he found the parties already agreed in 
 respect to the principal items of the bargain and was 
 consequently relieved from pronouncing on their intrin- 
 sic merits, and proceeded at once to suggest to Canada 
 the further concession which would be necessary to 
 bring her into final accord with her opponent. In pur- 
 suance of this agreement the Canadian Government or- 
 ganized a series of surveying parties upon a most exten- 
 sive and costly scale. In fact, during the last two years 
 two millions of money alone have been expended upon 
 these operations. The Chief Engineer himself has told 
 me that Mr. Mackenzie had given.him carte blanche in the 
 matter, so anxious was he to have the route determined 
 without delay; and that the mountains were already as 
 full of as many theodolites and surveyors as they could 
 hold. I am aware it is said — indeed as much has been 
 hinted to me since 1 came here — that these surveys were 
 merely multiplied in order to furnish an excuse for further 
 delays. Well, that is rather a hard saying. But upon 
 this point 1 can speak from my own personal know- 
 ledge, and I am sure that what I say on this head will 
 
 ■f#^ 
 
to 
 
 li 
 
 be accepted as the absolute truth. During the whole of 
 the period under review I was in constant personal com- 
 munication with Mr. Fleming, and was kept acquainted 
 by that gentleman with everything that was being 
 done. 1 knew the position of every surveying party 
 in the area under examination. Now Mr. Fleming is a 
 gentleman in whose personal integrity, and in whose 
 professional ability every one I address has the most 
 perfect confidence. Mr. Fleming, of course, was the 
 responsible engineer who planned those surveys and 
 determined the lines along which they were to be 
 carried, and over and over again Mr. Fleming has ex- 
 plained to me how unexpected were the difficuties he 
 had to encounter, how repeatedly after following hope- 
 fully a particular route his engineers found themselves 
 stopped by an impassable wall of mountain which 
 blocked the way, and how trail after trail had to be 
 examined and abandoned before he had hit on anything 
 like a practicable route. Even now, after all that has 
 been done, a glance at the map will show you how 
 devious and erratic is the line which appears to afford 
 the only tolerable exit from the labyriathine ranges of 
 the Cascades. Notwithstanding, therefore, whatever 
 may have been bruited abroad in the sense to which I 
 have alluded, I am sure it will be admitted, nay, 
 I know it is admitted, that so far as the pro- 
 secution of the surveys is concerned, Canada has 
 used due diligence, yes, more than due diligence in 
 her desire to comply with that section of the "Carnar- 
 von Terms " relating to this particular. You must 
 remember that it is a matter of the greatest moment, 
 affecting the success of the entii*e scheme, and calcu- 
 lated permanently to affect the future destiny of the 
 people of Canada, that a right decision should be arriv- 
 ed at in regard to the location of the western portion 
 of the line, and a Minister would be a traitor to a most 
 sacred trust if he allowed himself to be teased, intimi- 
 dated or cajoled into any percipitate decision on such a 
 momentous point until every possible route had been 
 duly examined. When I left Ottawa the engineers 
 seemed disposed to report that our ultimate choice 
 would lie between two routes, both starting from Fort 
 
 
17 
 
 [ole of 
 corn- 
 
 George, namely, that which leads to the head of Dean's 
 Canal, and that which terminates in Bute Inlet. Of 
 these two the line to Dean's Canal was the shortest by 
 some 40 miles, and was considerably the cheaper by 
 reason of its easier grades. The ultimate exit of this 
 channel to the sea was also more direct than the 
 tortuous navigation out of Bute Inlet ^ but Mr. Mac- 
 kenzie added — though you must not take what I am 
 now going to say as a definite conclusion on his part, 
 or an authoritative communication upon mine — that 
 provided the difference in expense was not so great as 
 to forbid it, he would desire to adopt what might be 
 the less advantageous route from the Dominion point 
 of view in order to follow that line which would most 
 aptly meet the requirements of the Province. Without 
 pronouncing an opinion on the merits of either of the 
 routes, which it is no part of my business to do, 1 may 
 venture to say that in this principle I think Mr, Macken- 
 zie is right, and that it would be wise and generous of 
 Canada to consult the local interests of British Colum- 
 bia by bringing the line and its terminus within reach 
 of existing settlement, if it can be done without any 
 undue sacrifice of public money. From a recent article 
 in the Globe it would seem as though the Bute Inlet 
 line had finally found favour with the Government, 
 though I myself have no information on the point, and 
 I am happy to see from the statistics furnished by that 
 journal that not only has the entire line to the Pacific 
 been at last surveyed, located, graded, and its profile 
 taken out, but that the calculated expenses of construc- 
 tion though very great, and to be incurred only after 
 careful consideration, are far less than were anticipated. 
 Well, gentlemen, should the indications we have 
 received of the intentions of the Government prove 
 correct, you are very much to be congratulated, for 1 
 am well aware that the line to Bute Inlet is the one 
 which you have always favoured, and I should hope 
 that now at last you will be satisfied that the Canadian 
 Government has used, as it undertook to do, all 
 
 {)ossible expedition in prosecuting the surveys of the 
 ine to the Pacific Coast. I only wish that Wadding- 
 ton Harbour, at the head of the Inlet, was a better 
 
la 
 
 port. I confess to having hut a very poor opinion of it, 
 and certainly the acquaintance I have made with Seymour 
 Nari'ows and the intervening channels which will have 
 to be bridged or ferried, did not seem to mo to be very 
 favourable to either operation. Well, then, we now 
 come to the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Eailway. I am 
 well aware of the extraordinary importance j^ou attach 
 to this work, and of course I am perfectly ready to 
 admit that its immediate execution was promised to 
 you in the most definite and absolute manner under 
 Lord Carnarvon's arbitration. I am not, therefore, 
 suprisod at the irritation and dxcitcmcnt occasioned in 
 this city by the non-fulfilment of this item in the 
 agreement — nay, 1 will go further, 1 think it extremely 
 natural that the miscarriage of this part of the bargain 
 should have been provocative of very strenuous lan- 
 guage and deeply embittered feelings, nor am 1 surpris- 
 ed that as is almost certain to follow on such occasions, 
 you should in your vexation put a very injurious con- 
 struction on the conduct of those who had undertaken 
 to realize your hopes; but still 1 know that I am address- 
 ing high-minded and reasonable men, and moreover that 
 you are perfectly convinced that I would sooner cut 
 my right hand off than utter a single word that I do 
 not know to be an absolute truth. Two years have 
 passed since the Canadian Government undertook to 
 commence the construction of the Esquimalt and 
 Nanaimo Eailway, and the Nanaimo and Esquimalt 
 Eailway is not even commenced, and what is more 
 thci'c does not at present seem a prospect of its being 
 commenced. What then is the history of the case, 
 and who is answerable for your disappointment? I 
 know you consider Mr. Mackenzie. 1 am not here to 
 defend Mr. Mackenzie, his policy, his proceedings, or 
 his utterances. 1 hope this will be clearly understood. 
 In anything I have hitherto said 1 have done nothing 
 of this sort, nor do I intend to do so. I have merely 
 stated to you certain matters with which I thought it 
 well for you to be acquainted, because they have been 
 misapprehended, and what I now tell you are also 
 matters of fact, within my own cognizance and which 
 have no relation to Mr. Mackenzie as the head of a 
 
19 
 
 ofit, 
 nour 
 lave 
 very 
 now 
 am 
 ;ach 
 
 to 
 
 to 
 
 political party, and 1 tell them to you not only in your 
 own interest, but in the interest of public morality and 
 English honour. In accordance with his engagements 
 to you in relation to the Nanaimo and Esquimalt Rail- 
 way Mr. Mackenzie introduced as soon as it was possible 
 a Bill into the Canadian House of Commons, the clauses 
 of which were admitted by your Representatives in 
 Parliament fully to discharge his obligations to your- 
 selves and to Lord Carnarvon in respect to that under- 
 taking, and carried it through the lower House by a 
 large majority. 1 have reason to think that nuiny of 
 his supporters voted for the Bill with very great 
 misgivings both as to the policy of the measure, and 
 the intrinsic merits of the Railway, but their leader 
 had pledged himself to exercise his Parliamentary 
 influence to pass it, and they very properly carried it 
 through for him. It went up to the Senate and it was 
 thrown out by that body by a majority of two. Well, 
 I have learnt with regret that there is a very wi<le- 
 Bpread conviction in this community that Mr. Macken- 
 zie had surreiDtitiously procured the defeat of hits own 
 measure in the UiDper House. Had Mr. Mackenzie 
 dealt so treacherously by Lord Carnarvon, by the 
 Representative of his Sovereign in this country, or by 
 you, he would have been guilty of a most atrocious 
 act, of which I trust no public man in Canada or in any 
 other British Colony could be capable. I tell you in 
 the most emphatic terms, and I pledge my honour 
 on the point, that Mr. Mackenzie was not guilty of any 
 Buch base and deceitful conduct — had I thought him 
 guilty of it either he would have ceased to have been 
 Prime Minister or I should have left the country. But 
 the very contrary was the fact. While these events 
 were passing I was in constant personal communication 
 with Mr. Mackenzie. I naturally watched the pro- 
 gress of the Bill with the greatest anxiety, because I was 
 aware of the eagerness with which the act was desired 
 in Victoria, and because 1 had long felt the deepest 
 sympathy with you in the succession of disappoint* 
 ments to which, by the force of circumstances, you had 
 been exposed. When the Bill passed the House of 
 Commons by a large majority with the assent of the 
 
20 
 
 leafier of the opposition, in common "vvitli everyone else, 
 I t'oncludod it wuh safe, and the adverse vote of the 
 Senate took nieas mueh by surprise us it did you and the 
 rest of the world. I saw Mr. Mackenzie the next day 
 and I have seldom seen a man more annoyed or discon- 
 certed than he was; indeed he was driven at that inter- 
 view to protest with more warmth than he has ever used 
 against the decision of the English Government, which 
 had refused, on the opinion of the law officers of the 
 Crown, to allow him to add to the members of the 
 Senate, when soon after his accession to office, Prince 
 Edward Island had entered Confederation. "Had he 
 " b( on permitted, '^ he said to me, " to have exercised 
 " hid rights in that respect, this would not V ve 
 " happened, but how can these mischances be pre it- 
 "od in a body, the majority of which, having i , on 
 " nominated by my political oj)poncnt is naturally 
 " hostile to me." Now, gentlemen, your acquaintance 
 with Parliamentary Government must tell you that 
 this last observation of Mr. Mackenzie's was a jjcrfect- 
 ly just one. But my attention has been drawn to the 
 fact that two of Mr. Mackenzie's party supported his 
 Conservative opponents in the rejection of the Bill, but 
 surely you don't imagine that a Prime Minister can 
 deal with his supporters in the Senate as if they were 
 a regiment of soldiers. In the House of Commons he 
 has a better chance of maintaing a party discipline, for 
 the constituencies are very apt to resent any insub- 
 ordination on the part of their members towards the 
 leader of their choice. But a Senator is equally inde- 
 pendent of the Crown, the Minister, or the people, and 
 as in the House of Lords at Home, so in the Second 
 Cb-?.mLor in Canada, gentlemen will run from time to 
 time on the wroag side of the post. But it has been 
 observed — granting that the two members in question 
 did not vet S3 thoy did at Mr. Mackenzie's instigation 
 < — bo liUH orihibitsd his perfidy in not sending in his 
 resi[j7^atioii ;is scon p.s the Senate had pronounced 
 ag.Vnst tlu; rill. ITow, gentlemen, you cannot expect 
 me to disciisii Jfr. i'ackenzie's conduct in that respect. 
 It would ^0 very improper forme to do so, but though 
 I crt.iiioo diocusb Mr. Mackenzie's conduct, 1 am perfect- 
 
21 
 
 \y at liberty to toll you what Imysolf should have douo 
 had Mr. Mackenzie tondored to mo his resignation. I 
 should have told him that in my opinion such a course 
 was quite unjustifiable, that as the House of Commons 
 was then constituted I saw no prospect of the Queen's 
 Government being advantageously carried on oxoopt 
 under his leadership, and that wore ho to resign at that 
 time the greatest inconvenience and detriment would 
 ensue to the public service. That is what I should 
 have said to Mr. Mackenzie in the event contemplated, 
 and I have no doubt that the Parliament and the 
 people of Canada would have confirmed my decision. 
 But it has been furthermore urged that Mr. Mackenzie 
 ought to have rc-introduccd the Bill. Well, that is 
 again a point I cannot discuss, but I may toll you this, 
 that it Mr. Mackenzie had done so, I vory much doubt 
 whc lor he would have succeeded in carrying it a second 
 time oven in the House of Commons. The fact is that 
 Cana la at large, whether rightly or wrongly I do not 
 say, has unmistakably shown its approval of the vote 
 in the Senate. An opinion has come to prevail from 
 one end of the Dominion to the other, an opinion which 
 I find is acquiesced in by a considerable jiroportion of 
 the inhabitants of British Columbia, that the Nanaimo 
 and Esquimau Railway cannot stand upon its own 
 merits, and that its construction as a Government enter- 
 prise would be, at all events at present, a useless ex- 
 jpenditure of the public money. Now again let me 
 assure you that I am not presuming to convey to you 
 any opinion of my own on this much contested point. 
 Even did I entertain any misgivings on the subject it 
 would be very ungracious for me to parade them in 
 your presence and on such an occasion. I am merely 
 communicating to you my conjecture why it is that Mr. 
 Mackenzie has shown no signs of his intention to re- 
 introduce the Nanaimo and Bsquimalt Eailway Bill into 
 Parliament, viz. : — because he had no chance of getting 
 it passed. Well, then, gentlemen, of whom and what 
 have you to complain ? Well, you have every right 
 from your point of view to complain of the Canadian 
 Senate. You have a right to say that after the Govern- 
 ment of the day had promised that a measure upon. 
 
 ( 
 
22 
 
 which a majority of the inhabitants of an important 
 Province had set their hearts should be passed, it was 
 ili-iidvised and unhandsome of that body not to confirm 
 . the natural expectations which had thus been gendered 
 in your breasts, especially when that work was itself 
 offered as a solution to you for a previous injury. I 
 fully admit that it is a very grave step for either House 
 of the Legislature, and particularly for that which i» 
 .not the popular branch, to. disavow any agreement into 
 fwhich the Executive may have entered, except under a 
 'very absolute sense of public duty. Mind, I am not 
 saying that this is not such a case, but I say that you 
 have got a perfect right from your own point of view, 
 so to regard it. But, gentlemen, that is all. You have 
 got no right to go beyond that. You have got no right 
 to describe yourselves as a second time the victims of 
 a broken agreement. As I have shown you, the persons 
 who had entered into an engagement in regard to this 
 Eailvvay with you and Lord Carnarvon had done their 
 very best to discharge their obligations. But the 
 Senate who counteracted their intention, had given no 
 preliminary promises whatsoever either to you or to- 
 thc Secretary of State. They rejected the Bill in the 
 legitimate exercise of their constitutional functions, and 
 there is nothing more to be said on this head, so far as- 
 that body is concerned, either by you or Lord Car- 
 narvon, for I need not assure you that there is not the- 
 slightest chance that any Secretary of State in Down- 
 ing Street would attempt anything so unconstitutional, 
 so likely to kindle a flame throughout the whole 
 Dominion, as to coerce the free legislative action of her 
 
 Legislature. 
 
 But there is one thing I admit the Senate 
 
 W'V- 
 
 has done, it has revived in their integrity those original 
 treaty obligations on the strength of which you were 
 induced to enter Confederation, and it has re-imposed 
 upon Mr. Mackenzie and his Government the obligation 
 of offering you an equivalent for that ctipulation in the 
 " Carnarvon Terms " which he has not been able ta 
 make good. Now, from the very strjng language 
 which has been used in I'^gard to the conduct of Mr. 
 Mackenzie, a bystander would be led to imagine that as 
 soon as his Kailway Bill had miscarried, he had 
 
cynically refused to take any further action in tho 
 matter. Had my Government done this they would 
 have exposed themselves to the scv vest repreiiension, 
 and such conduct would have been both faithless to 
 you and disresiDectful to Tjord Carrarvon ; but so far 
 from having acted in this manner, Mr. Mackenzie has 
 ofTered you a very considerable grant of money in con- 
 sideration of your disappointment. Now here again I 
 won't touch upon the irritating controversies which 
 have circled round this particulrj step in these tran- 
 sactions. I am well aware that you consider this offer 
 to have been made under conditions of which you have 
 reason to complain. If this has been the case it is 
 most unfortunate, but still whatever may have been 
 the sinister incidents connected with the past, the one 
 solid fact remains that the Canadian Government has 
 offered you $750,000 in lieu of the railway. This sum 
 has been represented to me as totall}' inadequate, and 
 as very far short of an equivalent. It may be so or it 
 may not be so. Neither upon that point will I offer 
 «,n opinion, but still I may, mention to you the principle 
 upon which that sum has been arrived at. Under the 
 Nanaimo and Esquimalt Railway Bill, whose rejection 
 by the Senate we have been considering, Canada was 
 to contribute a bonus of 810,000 a mile ; the total 
 distance of the line is about 70 miles, consequently the 
 $750,000 is nothing more or less than this very bonus 
 converted into a lumjD sum. Now since I have come 
 here it has been represented to me by the friends of 
 the Railway that it is a line which is capable of stand- 
 ing on its own merits, and that a company had been 
 almost induced to take it up some time ago as an un- 
 subsidied enterprise. Nay, only yesterday the local 
 paper which is the most strenuous champion for tho 
 line, asserted that it could be built for $2,000,000 ; that 
 the lands — which, with the $750,000, were to be re- 
 placed by Mr. Mackenzie at your disposal — were worth 
 several millions more, and that the Railway itself 
 would prove a most paying concern. If this is so, and 
 what better authority can I refer to, is it not obvious 
 that the bonus j^roposal of the Dominion (tovernment 
 assumes at least the semblance of a fair offer, and even. 
 
HI 
 
 24 
 
 if you did not consider it absolutely up to the mark, it 
 should not have been denounced in the very strong 
 language which has been used. However, I do not 
 wish to discuss the point whether the $750,000 was a 
 sufficient offer or not. I certainly am not empowered 
 to hold out to you any hopes of an advance — all that 
 I would venture to submit is that Mr. Mackenzie having 
 been thwarted in his bona fide endeavour to fulfil this 
 special item in the " Carnarvon Terms " has adopted 
 the only course left to him in proposing to discharge 
 his obligations by a money payment, I confess I 
 should have thought this would be the most natural 
 solution of the problem, and that the payment of a 
 sum of money equivalent to the measure of Mr. Mac- 
 kenzie's original obligation, to be expended under 
 whatever conditions would be most immediately ad- 
 vantageous to the Province, and altimately beneficial 
 to the Dominion, would not have been an unnatural 
 remedy for the misadventure which has stultified the 
 special stipulation in regard to the Nanaimo and Esqui- 
 mau Railway, but of course of these matters you your- 
 selves are the best judges, and I certainly have not the 
 sligliest desire to suggest to yv'^u any course which you 
 may think contrary to your in .erests. My only object 
 in touching upon them at all is to disabuse your minds^ 
 of the idea that there has been any intention upon the 
 part of Mr. Mackenzie, his Government, or of Canada, 
 to break their faith with yo i. Every single item of' 
 the " Carnarvon Terms " is at this moment in the 
 course of fulfilment. At enormous expense the surveys 
 have been pressed forward to completion; the fifty 
 millions of land and the thirty millions of money to 
 be provided for by Canada under the Bill are ready ;, 
 the profiles of the main line have been taken out, and 
 the most elaborate information has been sent over to 
 Europe in regard to every section of country through 
 which it passes ; several thousand miles of the stipu- 
 lated telegraph have been laid down, and now that the 
 location of the western terminus seems to have been 
 determined, though upon this point I have myself no 
 information, tenders 1 imagine will be called for almost 
 immediately. Whatever further steps may be neces- 
 
25 
 
 the 
 
 eary to float the undertaking as a commercial enter- 
 prise will be adopted and the promised waggon-road 
 will necessarily follow pari passu with construction. 
 Well, then, gentlemen, how will you stand under these 
 circumstances ? You will have got your line to Bute 
 Inlet. Now I will communicate to you a conclusion I 
 have arrived at from my visit to that locality. If the 
 Pacific Eailway once comes to Bute Inlet, it cannot 
 stop there. It may pause there for a considerable time, 
 until Canadian trans-Pacific traffic with Australia, 
 China, and Japan shall have begun to expand, but such 
 a trajfic once set going, Waddington Harbour will no 
 longer serve as a terminal port, in fact it is no harbour 
 at all, and scarcely an anchorage, — the Kailwaj^ must 
 be prolonged under these circumstances to Esquimalt, 
 that is to say if the deliberate opinion of the Engineers 
 should pronounce the operation feasible, and Canada 
 shall in the meantime have acquired the additional 
 financial stability which would justify her undertaking 
 v^rhat under anj'- circumstances must prove one of the 
 most gigantic achievements the world has ever witnessed. 
 In that case of course the Nanaimo Railway springs 
 into existence of its own accord, and you will then bo in 
 possession both of your money compensation and of the 
 thing for which it was paid, and with this result 1 do not 
 think you should be ill-satisfied. But should the con- 
 trary be the case, the prospect is indeed a gloomy one; 
 should hasty counsels, and the exhibition of an im- 
 practicable spirit throw these arrangements into con- 
 fusion, interrupt or change our present railway pro- 
 gramme, and necessitate any re-arrangement of your 
 political relations, I fear Victorij^ would be the chief 
 sufferer. I scarcely like to allude to such a contin- 
 gency, nor, gentlemen, are my observations directed 
 immediately to you. Now I know very well that neither 
 those whom 1 am addressing nor do the greater 
 majority of )he inhabitants of Vancouver Island or of 
 Victoria, participate in the views to which I am about 
 to refer, but still a certain number of your fellow- 
 citizens, gentlemen with whom I have had a great 
 deal of pleasant and interesting conversation, and who 
 have shown to mo personally tne greatest kindness and 
 
 » K^iX-iUL. 
 
 J.ji i__.' i 
 
 'mi A, B, c 
 
26 
 
 conrtcsj', liavo sought to impress mo with the belier 
 that it' tlie Legislature of Cjinada is not compelled by 
 some means or other, which however they do not 
 specify, to make forthwith these 70 miles of railway, 
 
 /they will be strong enough, in the face of Mr. Mac- 
 kenzie's offer of a money equivalent, to take British 
 Columbia out of the Confederation. Well, they cer- 
 tainly won't be able to do that. I am now in a position 
 to judgd for myself as to what are tho real sentiments 
 of the community. I will even presume to say I know 
 more about it than these gentlemen themselves. When 
 once the main line of the Pacific Eailway is under 
 weigh, the whole poimlation of the Mainland would be 
 
 ' perfectly contented with the present situation of affairs,, 
 and will never dream of detaching their fortunes from 
 those of Her Majesty's great Dominion. Nay, I don't 
 believe that these gentlemen would be able to persuade , 
 their fellow citizens even of the Island of Vancouver ' 
 to so violent a course; but granting for the moment 
 that their influence should prevail, — what would be the 
 result ? British Columbia would be still part and 
 parcel of Canada. The great work of Confederation 
 would not be perceptibly affected. But the proposed * 
 line of the Pacific Eailway might possibly be deflected 
 south. ISTew Westminster would certainly become the 
 capital of the Province, the Dominion would naturally 
 use its best endeavours to build it up into a flourishing 
 and prosperous city. It would be the seat of Govern- 
 ment, and the home of justice, as well as the chief social 
 centre on the Pacific Coast. Burrard Inlet would be- 
 come a great commercial port, and the miners of 
 Cariboo with their stores of gold dust would spend 
 their festive and open-handed winters there. Great 
 Britain would of course retain Esquimalt as a naval 
 station on this coast, as she has retained Halifax as a 
 naval station on the other, and inasmuch as a con- 
 stituency of some 1,500 persons would not be able to 
 supply the material for a Parliamentary Government^ 
 Vancouver and its inhabitants, who are now influential 
 by reason of their intelligence rather than their num- 
 bers, would be ruled as Jamaica, Malta, Gibraltar, 
 Heligoland, and Ascension are ruled, through tho instru- 
 
27 
 
 ^mentality of some Naval or other Officer. Nanairao 
 would become the principal town of the Island, and 
 Victoria would lapse for many a long year into the 
 condition of a village, until the development of your 
 coal fields, and the growth of a healthier sentiment had 
 prepared the way for its re-incorporation with the rest 
 of the Province ; at least that is the horoscope I should 
 draw for it in the contingency contemplated by those 
 gentlemen. But God forbid that any such prophecy 
 should be realized. I believe the gentlemen I have 
 referred to are the very last who would desire to see 
 the fulfilment of their menaces, and I hope they will 
 forgive me if 1 am not intimidated by their formidable 
 representations. When some pertinacious philosopher 
 insisted on assailing the late King of the Belgians with 
 a raphsody on the beauties of a Eopublican Govern- 
 ment His Majesty replied, "• You forget, sir, I am a 
 Koj^alist by profession." Well, a Governor-General is 
 a Federalist by profession, and you might as well ex- 
 pect the Sultan of Turkey to throw up his cap for the 
 •commune as the Viceroy of Canada to entertain a sug- 
 .:gestion for the disintegration of the Dominion. I hope 
 therefore they will not bear me any ill-will for having 
 declined to bow my head beneath their " separation " 
 arch. It was a very good humoured, and certainly not 
 a disloyal bit of " bounce " which they had prepared 
 for me. I suppose they wished me to know they were the 
 ^* arch " enemies of C^intida. Well, I have made an arch 
 r^ply. But, gentlemen, of course, I am not serious in 
 discussing such a contingency as that to which I have 
 referred. Yov.r numerical weakness as a community 
 is your real strength, for it is a consideration which ^ 
 apfjals to every generous heart. Far be the day 
 when on any aero of soil above which floats the flag of 
 England, mere material power, brute political prepon- 
 derance, should be permitted to decide such a contro- 
 versy as that which we are discussing. It is to men 
 like yourselves who, with unquailing fortitude and 
 heroic energy have planted the laws and liberties and 
 the blessed influences of English homes amidst the 
 wilds and desert plains of savage lands, that England 
 owes the enhancement of her prestige, the diflusion of 
 
28 
 
 her tongue, the increase of her commerce and licr ever- 
 widening renown, and woe betide the Government or 
 Statesmen who, because its inhabitants are few in 
 number and politically of small account, should disre- 
 gard the wishes or carelessly dismiss the rej)resenta- 
 tions however bluff, boisterous or downright, of the 
 feeblest of our distant colonies. No, gentlemen, neither 
 England or Canada would be content or happy in any 
 settlement that was not arrived at with your own 
 hearty approval and consent, and equally satisfactory 
 to every section of your Province; but we appeal to 
 your moderation and jDractical good sense to assist us 
 in resolving the present difficulty, — the gemus of the 
 English race has ever been too robust and sensible to 
 admit the existence of an irreconcileable element in its 
 midst. It is only among weak and hysterical popula- 
 tions that such a growth can flourish; — however 
 hard the blows given and taken during the contest, 
 Eritishers always find a means of making up the 
 quarrel, and such I trust will be the ca^e on the pre- 
 sent occasion. My functions as a constitutional ruler 
 are simply to superintend the working of the political 
 machine, but not to intermeddle with its action. I 
 trust that I have observed that rule on the present 
 occasion and that, although 1 have addressed you at 
 considerable length, 1 have not said a woi^d which has 
 not been strictly within my province to say or has 
 intruded on those domains which are reserved for my 
 responsible advisers. As I warned you would be the 
 case, I have made no announcement, I have made 
 no promise, I have hazarded no opinion upon any 
 of the administrative questions now occupying the 
 joint attention of yourselves and the Dominion. I 
 have only endeavoured to correct some misapprehen- 
 sions by which you have been possessed in regard to 
 matters of historical fact, and I have testified to the 
 kind feeling entertained for you by your fellow.subjects 
 in Canada, and to the desire of my Government for the 
 re-establishment of the friendliest and kindest rela- 
 tions between you and themselves, and I trust that I 
 may carry away with me the conviction that from 
 henceforth a less angry and irritated feeling towards 
 
29 
 
 Canada will have been inaugurated than has hitherto 
 subsisted. Of my own earnest desire to do anything I 
 can to forward your views so far as they may be found- 
 ed in justice and reason 1 need not speak. My pre- 
 sence here and the way in w4i]ch I have spent my time 
 will have convinced you of what has been the object 
 nearest my heart. I cannot say how glad I am to have 
 come, or how much I have profited by mj'" visit, and I 
 assure you none of tbe representations with which I 
 have been favoured will escape my memory or fail to be 
 duly submitted in the proper quarter. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, I must bid you good bye; but 
 before doing so tbore is one other topic upon which I 
 am desirous of touching. From my first arrival in 
 Canada I have been very much preoccupied with the 
 condition of the Indian population in this Province. 
 You must remember that the Indian population are not 
 represented in Parliament, and consequently that the 
 Governor-General is bound to watch over their welfare 
 with especial solicitude. Now, we must all admit that 
 the condition of the Indian question in British Colum- 
 bia is not satisfactory. Most unfortunately, as I think, 
 there has been an initial error ever since Sir James 
 Douglas quitted office, in the Government of British 
 Columbia neglecting to recognize what is known as the 
 Indian title. In Canada this has always been done j 
 no Government, whether provincial or central, has 
 failed to acknowledge that the original title to the land 
 existed in the Indian tribes and communities that 
 hunted or wandered over them. Before we touch an 
 acre we make a treaty with the chiefs representing the 
 lands we are dealing with, and having agreed upon 
 and paid the stipulated price, oftentimes arived a'j after 
 a great deal of haggling and difficulty, we enter into 
 possession, but not until then do we consider that we 
 are entitled to deal with an acre. The result has been 
 that in Canada our Indians are contented, well aifected 
 to the white man, and amenable to the laws and Go- 
 vernment. At this very moment the Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Manitoba has gone on a distant expedition 
 in order to make a treaty with tbe tribes to the north- 
 ward of the Saskatchewan. Last year he made two 
 
30 
 
 treaties with the Sioux and Crows ; next year it has 
 been arranged that he should make a treaty with the 
 Blackfeet, and when this has been done the British 
 Crown will have acquired a title to every acre thc<t 
 lies between Lake Superior and the. top of the Eocky 
 Mountains. But in British Columbia, except in a few 
 cases where, under the jurisdiction of the Hudson Bay 
 Company or under the auspices of Sir James Douglas, 
 a similar practice has been adopted, the British Colum- 
 bia Government has always assumed that the fee sim- 
 ple as well as the sovereignty resided in the Queen. 
 Acting upon this principle they have granted extensive 
 grazing leases and otherwise so dealt with various sec- 
 tions of the country as greatly to restrict or interfere 
 with the prescriptive rights of the Queen's Indian 
 subjects. As a consequence there has come to exist a 
 very unsatisfactory feeling amongst the Indian popula- 
 tion. Intimations o^ this reached me at Ottawa two or 
 three j^ears ago, and since I have come into the Pro- 
 vince my misgivings oii the subject have been confirm- 
 ed. Now, I confess I consider that our Indian fellow- 
 subjects are entitled to exactly the same civil rights 
 under the law as are possessed by the white pojDula- 
 tion, and that if an Indian can prove a prescriptive 
 right of way to a fishing station, or a right of way of 
 any other kind, that that right should no more be ignor- 
 ed than if it was the case of a white man. lam well aware 
 that among the coast Indians the land question does 
 not present the same characteristics as in other parts 
 of Canada, or as it does in the grass countries of the 
 interior of the Province, but I have also been able to 
 understand that in these latter districts it may be even 
 more necessary to deal justly and liberally with the 
 Indian in regard to his land rights even than on the 
 prairies of the North-West. I am very happy to think 
 that the British Columbia Government should have 
 recognized the necessity of assisting the Dominion 
 Government in ameliorating the present condition of 
 affairs in this respect, and that it has agreed to the 
 creation of a joint commission for the purpose of putting 
 the interests of the Indian population on a more satis- 
 factory footing. Of course in what I have said I do 
 
31 
 
 not moan that, in our desire to bo humane and to act 
 justly, wo should do anything unreasonable or Quixotic, 
 or that rights already acquired by white men should 
 be inconsiderately invaded or recalled ; but I would 
 venture to put the Government of British Columbia on 
 its guard against the fatal eventualities which might 
 arise should a sense of injustice provoke the Indian 
 population to violence or into collision with our scat- 
 tered settlers. Probably there has gone forth amongst 
 them very incorrect and exaggerated information of the 
 warlike achievements of their brethren in Dakotah, and 
 their uneducated minds are incapable of calculating 
 chances. Of course there is no danger of any serious 
 or permanent revolt, but it must bo remembered that 
 even an accidental collision in which blood was shed 
 might have a most disastrous effect upon our j)resent 
 satisfactory relations with the warlike tribes in the 
 North- West, whose amity and adhesion to our system 
 of government is so essential to the progress of the 
 Pacific Eailway, and I make this appeal, as I may call 
 it, with all the more earnestness since I have convinced 
 myself of the degree to which, if properly dealt 
 with, the Indian population might be made to contribute 
 to the development of the wealth and resources of the 
 Province. I have now seen them in all phases of their 
 existence, from the half-naked savage, perched like a 
 bird of prey, in a red blanket, upon a rock trying to 
 catch his miserable dinner of fish, to the neat Indian 
 maiden in Mr. Duncan's school at Metlakatlah, as mo- 
 dest and as well dressed as any clergyman's daughter 
 in an English parish, or to the shrewd horse-riding 
 Siwash of the Thompson Yalley, with his racers in 
 training for the Ashcroft stakes and as proud of his 
 stackyard and turnip field as a British squire. In his 
 first condition it is evident he is scarcely a producer or 
 consumer; in his second he is eminently bothj and in 
 proportion as he can be raised to the higher level of 
 civilization will be the degree to which he will contribute 
 to the vital energies of the Province. What you want 
 are not resources, but human beings to develop them 
 and to consume them. Eaise your 60,000 Indians to 
 the level Mr. Duncan has taught us they can be brought 
 
32 
 
 and consider what an enormous amount of vital power 
 you will have added to your present strength. JBut I 
 must not keep you longer. I thank you most heartily 
 for your patience and attention. Most earnestly do I 
 desire the accomplishment of all your aspirations, and 
 if ever I have the good fortune to come to British 
 Columbia again I hope it may be by — Eail. 
 
vdtal power 
 th. But I 
 )8t heartily 
 lastly do I 
 ations, and 
 to British