My reason for forming that opinion is this:
during all the time that I have been able to observe their proceedings
there, there has been peace within the whole territory. The operations
of the Company seem to have been carried on, at all events, in such a
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.
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