d the tide of
emigration into it directed through Canadian channels, remembering the
danger of large grants of land passing into the hands of mere money
corporations, and the risk that the recent discoveries of gold on the
eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains might throw into the country
large masses of settlers unaccustomed to British institutions, they
arrived at the conclusion that the quickest solution of the question
would be the best for Canada. They therefore proposed that the whole
territory east of the Rockies and north of the American or Canadian
line should be made over to Canada, subject to the rights of the
Hudson's Bay Company; and that the compensation to be made by Canada
to the company should be met by a loan guaranteed by the British
government. To this, the imperial government consented.

The subsequent history of the acquisition of the West need not be told
here. In this case, as in others, Brown was a pioneer in a work which
others finished. But his services were generously acknowledged by Sir
John Macdonald, who said in the House of Commons in 1875: "From the
first time that he had entered parliament, the people of Canada looked
forward to a western extension of territory, and from the time he was
first a minister, in 1854, the question was brought up time and again,
and pressed with great ability and force by the Hon. George Brown, who
was then a prominent man in opposition to the government."

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Gunn and Tuttle's _History of Manitoba_, p. 303.

[20] Toronto _Globe_, January 25th, 1858.

CHAPTER XXII

THE RECIPROCITY TREATY OF 1874

Mr. Brown's position in regard to reciprocity has already been
described. He set a high value upon the American market for Canadian
products, and as early as 1863 he had urged the government of that day
to prepare for the renewal of the treaty. He resigned from the
coalition ministry, because, to use his own words, "I felt very
strongly that though we in Canada derived great advantage from the
treaty of 1854, the American people derived still greater advantage
from it. I had no objection to that, and was quite ready to renew the
old treaty, or even to extend it largely on fair terms of reciprocity.
But I was not willing to ask for a renewal as a favour to Canada; I
was not willing to offer special inducements for renewal without fair
concessions in return; I was not willing that the canals and inland
waters of Canada should be made the j