Under the new legislation for the territories, only those half-breeds within the bounds of the new province were guaranteed secure possession of their land. Under the principle that all territory not granted in specific form to individuals by the Ministers of the Crown, is the property of the Crown, each half-breed who occupied a lot of land under the Hudson Bay Company's rule, was regarded as a squatter under the new regime. To make such holding valid, therefore, the Government issued patents to bona fide squatters, who then found themselves on the same footing as the white immigrants. But beyond Manitoba, and chiefly in Prince Albert, there were large numbers of half-breeds settled over the prairie. So long as no immigrant came prying about for choice land the half-breeds had naught to complain about, but the rapid influx of population soon altered the whole face of the matter. Several squatters who had toiled for many a long year upon holdings, were obliged to make way for strangers who had "friends at court"—for even in the North West wilderness there is, in this sense, a court—and who took a fancy to the particular piece of land upon which "these lazy half-breeds" were squatting. Newspapers, whose business it is to keep the skirts of government clean in the matter, deny this altogether. But, unfortunately, there is no use in denying it. It is but too true, and it is with a feeling of very great regret that I myself, a Conservative, and a warm well-wisher of the administration, affirm it. It is true that in many and many a case, in a greater number of instances than even opponents of the administration suppose, a half-breed who has toiled for a number of years upon a lot, effecting improvements and taking pride in his property, has been dispossessed by an incomer because he could not show a patent from the Interior Department.
But almost as fruitful a source of dissatisfaction as these heartless and dishonest displacements has been the difficulty which the unfortunate squatter has experienced in obtaining his patent. The mills of the gods in the Interior Department grind very slowly. The obtaining of a patent by a deserving squatter as a general rule is about as difficult, and as worthy of applause when achieved, as is the task which lies before a farmer's boy who has decided to become a member of parliament, by first earning money enough to go to school to prepare for a third class teachership, by then teaching school till he has a sufficient competency to study medicine, and by then practising his profession till he finds himself able to capture the riding. Of course there is some excuse, and we must not forget to produce it, for the Department of the Interior. It would be undignified if it were to move with any degree of rapidity. According to etiquette, and the rule is very proper, when the application of the half-breed comes to the office, it must remain for at least four weeks in the drawer set apart for "correspondence to be read." After it has been read it receives one or two marks with a red-lead pencil, after which it is deposited in pigeon-hole No. 1. Now no document ever lodges for a shorter time than a month in pigeon-hole No. 1; and if at the end of that period it should happen to be removed, the clerk lays by his novel or tooth-pick, as the case may be, and puts one or two blue marks upon the back of it. When we consider that there are all the way from six to twenty pigeon-holes, by a simple process of arithmetic we can get approximately near the period which it takes the poor half-breed's prayer to get from pigeon-hole Alpha to pigeon-hole Omega. But during the process the back of the squatter's application has become a work of art. It is simply delightful to look upon. It not alone contains memoranda and hieroglyphics made in red and blue pen-pencil but it is also beautified by marks made upon it in carmine ink, in ink "la brillanza," an azure blue ink, in myrtle green ink, in violette noire; but never, it must be said to the credit of the department, in common black. But all these colours are worthless indeed, viewed from any point of view, compared with its other acquisitions. Solomon himself in all his glory was never decked out more gorgeously than this poor half-breed's greasy sheet of foolscap is at the end of its journey through the pigeon-holes. The prime minister of the Crown in all his pomp of imperial orders has not so many ribbons as this poor vagabond's claim. Sometimes it is swathed in crimson tyings, sometimes in scarlet, now and again in magenta; and I am very happy to be able to say that pink and two very exquisite shades of blue known as birds-egg and cobalt have lately been introduced.
Of course the half-breed complains when the weeks have swelled into months, and the months have got out of their teens, that he has heard no answer to his prayer; but the rascal should try to consider that his document has to make its voyage through the pigeon holes.
In this way there has been much heartburning, and many curses against officialdom and red-tape. While the back of the application is being turned out a christmas card, a stray immigrant comes along, and the squatter half-breed has once more to go back for a new camping-ground.
But there is something to be said—this time I am serious—for the Department in the matter, though not a very great deal. A number of the half-breeds, though a small, a very, very small proportion of the whole, are restless vagabonds, who squat upon lands with no intention of remaining permanently, but only with the object of speculation by selling their scrip, leaving the neighbourhood, taking up another lot, and receiving in like manner disposable scrip again. But the officers of the North-West must know that the half-breed people, in general, are constant-working, and are desirous of achieving comfort, and of affluence. Yet because of the acts of a few unprincipled, lazy wanderers, some will seek to convey the impression that the conduct of the small few is a type of the methods of all.
There is still, among the many irritating causes, all of which my limits will not permit me to dwell upon, one which must not go unnoticed. Mr. Dewdney is not the gentleman who ought to have the immediate administration of North-West affairs in his hands. He has neither the understanding nor the inclination to make him a suitable administrator. Before all things he is there for himself; and he has even figured in the respectable role of land-grabbing. I am sure that if the gentleman is to be provided for by the public no objection would be raised if Sir John were to propose that he be recalled, and receive his salary all the same in consideration of the position he holds in the regard of the prime-minister, and of those who are not exactly prime-ministers or ministers. Mr. Dewdney has not alone got it into his head that an Indian has no understanding; but he must also endow himself with the conviction that he has no nostrils. A friend of Mr. Dewdney got some meat, but the article stank, and the importer knew not how to dispose of it.
"O sell it to the Indians," the Governor said; and, "Lo! to the poor Indian" it was sold; and sold at tenderloin prices.
"We can't eat em meat. He stinks," the poor savage said.
"Em charge too much. Meat very bad."
"Let Indians eat their meat," the just Mr. Dewdney retorted; "or starve and be damned." What right has an Indian to complain of foul meat, and to say that he has been charged too high a price for it? He is only a savage!
Let Sir John take care.