of the first Lord Llangattock, and our seas are swept by vessels fitted with turbines invented and manufactured by Sir Charles Parsons, son of the Earl of Rosse, when our women folk purchase their hats from millinery shops run by ladies of title, and our own pockets are filled or depleted by innumerable companies all provided with titled directors. There is significance in the fact that the peerages start alphabetically with Lord Aberconway, who is not only a K.C. but also a director of one railway and four coal and iron companies. Enough has been said to establish our contention that of the three chief sources from which our nobility and gentry are recruited -military, legal and commercial-commercial services are, and have long been, considered as honourable, as profitable to the country, and as worthy of reward as services rendered on the field or in the court.

"All this confirms what I have said before, viz. that trade in England neither is nor ought to be levell❜d with what it is in other countries, or the tradesmen depreciated as they are abroad, and as some of our gentry would pretend to do in England; but that as many of our best families rose from trade, so many branches of the best families in England. . . have stoop'd so low as to be put apprentices to tradesmen in London, and to set up and follow those trades when they have come out of their times and have thought it no dishonour to their blood."1

1 Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman (1726), p. 379.

XXII

THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY

I

OR various reasons individual businesses do not usually survive many generations. We have seen the commercial monument built by de la Pole disappear on the death of his son, and the great businesses of Whittington, of Gresham, of Peel, of all the giants of commerce in Venice, Florence and Augsburg either die with their creators, or continue for a time only. The enormous business seems to grow and then die much like the giant oak; it does not appear to be possible so to construct it, to surround it with safeguards and bulwarks, or so to organize it that ability, energy and perseverance shall always continue in control.

The uncertain quantity is human nature. To the man who builds, delight lies in the building. To his son or successor and to his son's son the pleasure must lie in maintaining, in increasing, in strengthening. But inherited wealth and virility do not long as a rule continue as partners, they sooner or later always part company. The controller of the business may be and often is foolish, weak, or lazy, easily satisfied, or unprogressive, dissipated, or unambitious, and the business is soon outrun or outgeneralled by its ubiquitous competitors and finally disappears. This is the rule, but one of the exceptions, which are so few as to be wonderfully conspicuous, is the subject of this chapter.

The oldest commercial company in existence is the

Hudson's Bay Company. Established almost two hundred and fifty years ago, it is still live, aggressive and powerful, while of the hundreds or thousands of concerns organized at the same time, or even fifty or more years later, hardly one survives. Such virility is superb, and shows how deeply and securely the foundations of this great company were laid. It proves the marvellous ability of its chiefs during the early years, and also of those who have directed its affairs down to the present day.

While we do not propose undertaking anything more than a very brief survey of its centuries of accomplishment, we find it has done so much and has made history to such an extent that even a summary must occupy a large proportion of our pages. As Bryce says in his most fascinating and complete history of the Hudson's Bay Company: "The London merchants were mighty men, men who could select their agents, and send their ships, and risk their money on every sea and on every shore ";1 and that newly discovered but still unknown and untravelled country comprising the northern half of North America offered to these intrepid and fearless merchantadventurers a field doubly enticing because of its great risk and its possible very large profit.

.1

About the middle of the seventeenth century two French Protestants, Medard Chouart and Pierre Esprit Radisson, journeyed to Canada. They penetrated the frozen country as far as Hudson's Bay. They saw and became acquainted with the Indians, traded with them for furs, and were impressed with the possibilities of a large and lucrative trade.

Their several early voyages and expeditions finally ended to their disadvantage, for on returning to Quebec they were arrested by the French Governor and heavily fined for illicit trading. They appealed against the fine,

1 The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company, by George Bryce, M.A., LL.D., Professor in Manitoba College, Winnipeg, etc. etc.