--splendid types of manhood
because only the fittest can survive the hardships of the mountains;
coast Indians, Chinook and Chilcoot--low and lazy because the great
rivers feed them with salmon and they have no need to work.

Over these lawless Arabs of the New World wilderness the Hudson's Bay
Company has ruled for two and a half centuries with smaller loss of life
in the aggregate than the railways of the United States cause in a
single year.

Hunters have been lost in the wilds. White trappers have been
assassinated by Indians. Forts have been wiped out of existence. Ten,
twenty, thirty traders have been massacred at different times. But,
then, the loss of life on railways totals up to thousands in a single
year.

When fighting rivals long ago, it is true that the Hudson's Bay Company
recognised neither human nor divine law. Grant the charge and weigh it
against the benefits of the company's rule. When Hearne visited
Chippewyans two centuries ago he found the Indians in a state
uncontaminated by the trader; and that state will give the ordinary
reader cold shivers of horror at the details of massacre and
degradation. Every visitor since has reported the same tribe improved in
standard of living under Hudson's Bay rule. Recently a well-known
Canadian governor making an itinerary of the territory round the bay
found the Indians such devout Christians that they put his white retinue
to shame. Returning to civilization, the governor was observed attending
the services of his own denomination with a greater fury than was his
wont. Asked the reason, he confided to a club friend that he would be
_blanked_ if he could allow heathen Indians to be better Christians than
he was.

Some of the shiftless Indians may be hopelessly in debt to the company
for advanced provisions, but if the company had not made these advances
the Indians would have starved, and the debt is never exacted by seizure
of the hunt that should go to feed a family.

Of how many other creditors may that be said? Of how many companies that
it has cared for the sick, sought the lost, fed the starving, housed the
homeless? With all its faults, that is the record of the Hudson's Bay
Company.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 39: The spelling of the name with an apostrophe in the charter
seems to be the only reason for the company's name always having the
apostrophe, whereas the waters are now known simply as Hudson Bay.]

[Footnote 40: To the Indian mind the han