The impression among the officers of the Company is that under the deed poll of 1871 they are not so well remunerated as under the former régime. It is difficult to estimate the exact relation of the present to the past, inasmuch as the opening up of the country, the improvement of transportation facilities, and the cheapening of all agricultural supplies has changed the relative value of money in the country. Under this arrangement, which has been in force for twenty-four years, the profits of the wintering partners are divided on the basis of one-hundredth of a share. Of this an inspecting chief factor receives three shares; a chief factor two and a half; a factor two; and a chief trader one and a half shares. The average for the twenty-five years of the one-hundredth share has been 213l. 12s. 2-1/2d Since 1890 a more liberal provision has been made for officers retiring, and since that time an officer on withdrawing in good standing receives two years' full pay and six years' half pay. Later years have seen a further increase.
A visit to the Hudson's Bay House on the corner of Leadenhall and Lime Streets, London, still gives one a sense of the presence of the old Company. While in the New World great changes have taken place, and the visitor is struck with the complete departure from the low-ceiling store, with goods in disorder and confusion, with Metis smoking "kinni-kinnik" till the atmosphere is opaque—all this to the palatial buildings with the most perfect arrangements and greatest taste; yet in London "the old order changeth" but slowly. It is true the old building on Fenchurch Street, London, where "the old Lady" was said by the Nor'-Westers to sit, was sold in 1859, and the proceeds divided among the shareholders and officers for four years thereafter. But the portraits of Prince Rupert, Sir George Simpson, and the copy of the Company Charter were transferred bodily to the directors' room in the building on Lime Street. The strong room contains the same rows of minutes, the same dusty piles of documents, and the journals of bygone years, but the business of a vast region is still managed there, and the old gentlemen who control the Hudson's Bay Company affairs pass their dividends as comfortably as in years gone by, with, in an occasional year, some restless spirit stirring up the echoes, to be promptly repressed and the current of events to go on as before.
Since 1871, however, it is easy to see that men of greater financial ability have been at the head of the councils of the Hudson's Bay Company, recalling the palmy days of the first operations of the Company. After five years' service, Sir Edmund Head, the first Governor under the new deed poll, gave way, to be followed for a year by the distinguished politician and statesman, the Earl of Kimberley. For five years thereafter, Sir Stafford Northcote, who held high Government office in the service of the Empire, occupied this position. He was followed for six years by one who has since gained a very high reputation for financial ability, the Rt. Hon. G. J. Goschen. Eden Colville, who seems to carry us back to the former generation—a man of brisk and alert mind, and singularly free from the prejudices and immobility of Governor Berens, the last of the barons of the old régime—held office for three years after Mr. Goschen.
For the last ten years the veteran of kindly manner, warm heart, and genial disposition, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, has occupied this high place. The clerk, junior officer, and chief factor of thirty hard years on the inhospitable shores of Hudson Bay and Labrador, the Commissioner who, as Donald A. Smith, soothed the Riel rebellion, and for years directed the reorganization of the Company's affairs at Fort Garry and the whole North-West, the daring speculator who took hold, with his friends, of the Minnesota and Manitoba Railway, and with Midas touch turned the enterprise to gold, a projector and a builder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the patron of art and education, has worthily filled the office of Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and with much success reorganized its administration and directed its affairs.
The Company's operations are vaster than ever before. The greatest mercantile enterprise of the Greater Canada west of Lake Superior; a strong land Company, still keeping up its traditions and conducting a large trade in furs; owning vessels and transportation facilities; able to take large contracts; exercising a fatherly care over the Indian tribes; the helper and assistant of the vast missionary organizations scattered over Northern Canada, the Company since the transfer of Rupert's Land to Canada has taken a new lease of life; its eye is not dim, nor its natural force abated.