HISTORIC DAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 67, 20 March 1931, Page 7

HISTORIC DAYS

SETTLING OP CANADA

NEW CALEDONIA

(From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVEB, 4th February.

The passing of Mrs. John Manson at Eoyal Oak, Vancouver Island, at the age of 02, breaks the last link of the old fur trading days of the forties and fifties, and the foundation of the first British settlement in New Caledonia, the territories of which included what is now British Columbia, and the States of Washington and Oregon. It recalls, too, the massacre of the whites by the Indians at Waiilatpu, which was stopped by a small boy, John Manson, in the name of the Hudson's Bay Company. Mrs. Manson was the last survivor of. the family of James Mun§,y Yale, Chief Factor of the company at Fort Langley.

An epidemic of measles among the Indians was blamed by them on the whites, as a design to wipe them out and give their land to the traders and the voyageurs. They massacred their best friend, the Eev. Dr. Whitman, Presbyterian missionary, and slew his wife as she went to his assistance, and>all the adults in the settlement.

The children were huddled in the attic. > They were ordered down by the Indians. A chief climbed the stairs and saw the trapdoor open a little way, tho muzzle of a gun protruding. "I am the Hudson's Bay Company; we shall not come down," piped a childish voice.

The Indians parleyed for a moment before replying. "If you do not come; down, we will burn the house, and there will be no one left to tell the Hudson's Bay Company." The boy, gaining confidence from the Indian's hesitation, showed himself at the door.

"You can hide nothing from the company," he said.,"My father ia Donald Manson, a great. trader. He will avenge my death and the death of these other children, till there is no Indian left in New Caledonia."

After another parley, the Indians agreed to spare the children. When the boy grew up ho married the daughter of Yale, thereby uniting two famous families of pioneers and traders. A salute of seven guns was fired from the fort. The young couple "overlanded" 800 miles to their new post at Fort Fraser, where the bridegroom was appointed Factor. Another member of the Manson family, Michael; now the father of the British Columbia Legislature, prevented a massacre by the Indians in the North when, as a last resource, after they had plundered his store, seizing all tho guns and ammunition, he produced his life insurance policy. Pointing .to the flamboyant red seal at its foot, he said: "That is the mark of the Great White Queen, Victoria. If you kill us, she will send thousands of redcoats who will destroy all the Indians."

scope of awards were already down, and it was only right that all should share in the sacrifice. He did not think that all wages should be reduced, but all cases should be considered on their merits. He suggested that camps should be established in the country for unemployed singlo men. These men could be placed on productive work, and those who showed an aptitude for farming could be giye-n a chance to make good. The local committees had been the salvation of the uneniployment schemes and could well be given further powers.

Mr. C. H. Chapman (Labour, Wellington North) said that tho purpose of the Bill was obviously designed to raise the estimated deficit of £4,500,000 aiid it was totally unfair to take one-third of it from the Civil Service. Since 1921 it had boen the practice of the Governments in power to shift the incidence of taxation from the shoulders of those best able to bear it and put it on the shoulders of the working people. The fairest method of taxation was on income tax, and this'had fallen from £5,2-1.5,.045 in 1921 to a 'little ovnr £3,500,000 in 1930. Tho unemployment levy was a direct tax on tho working people, and at the same time as wages were boing reduced tho price of money was boing raised. The debate was adjourned until this afternoon.