Bay Company of England. The object of the coalition was
to extinguish the ruinous rivalry which had subsisted
for many years between a body of capitalists holding a
monopoly in London, and an association of traders con-
ducting an opposition business in the Indian country; also
to give the latter the legal status of the former, and to
secure for them a fair remuneration for their services. The
Hudson's Bay Company was to provide the capital; the
officers of the fur trade were to be the working or winter-
ing partners.

By gradual and almost insensible modifications the
original scheme became greatly altered; so that while the
position of the wintering partners of the fur trade to
the shareholders remained as originally constituted, their
relation to the business originally contributed in 1821 as
their share of the enterprise and their consequent actual
remuneration has been altered to their disadvantage.

Towards the shareholders their relation has remained
the same, because two-fifths of the annual profits of the
Company continued to be their share; but after 1870 their
business was thrown open to the whole world -- they were
practically debarred from fur trading pursuits over a large
portion of the original field, in consequence of the surrender
by the Company of their chartered monopoly, and of ex-
tinction of the trade in those portions of the territory
available for settlement, as well as its deterioration in
districts where opposition fur trading came to prevail.

The grievance was felt to be greater because in the lapse
of time since 1821 the remuneration of every class of
servants, excepting that to which the commissioned officers
belonged, has advanced -- in some instances very largely
indeed; and because the success of their exertions has so
enhanced the position of the Company in England as to
enable its stock to command a very high premium. This fact
has become directly instrumental in damaging the prospects
of the traders, through the advent of new shareholders, who,

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