The Hudson's Bay Company, though shorn of all political power, still survives, and is vigorous. It still seeks for furs in the far North, and is the largest land company in Canada, owning one-twentieth of every new township, which the government surveys. This serves to give the Hudson's Bay Company a strong interest in building up and developing the newer portions of the country. In addi tion to this the company has largely devoted it self to conducting large shops in the leading business centres of western Canada. The largest of these is the store in Winnipeg. This with its different departments does an enormous trade not only in Winnipeg, but in supplying by the use of the mails the needs of all parts of the country. Important stores are maintained by the company in Portage la Prairie, Rat Portage, Fort William, Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton and Prince Albert. The governor of the Hudson's Bay Company till 1914 was the predominating figure, Lord Strathcona, the Canadian commissioner in London. As the writer has elsewhere said, °for the last 15 years the veteran of kindly manner, warm heart, and genial disposition, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal (q.v.),, has occupied this high
place. The clerk, junior officer and chief factor of 30 hard years on the inhospitable shores of Hudson Bay and Labrador ; the com missioner 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 Northwest; 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, and the patriot who sent out at a cost of between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 the Strathcona regi ment of horse to the South African War has worthily filled the office of governor of the Hud son's Bay company, and with much success re organized its administration and directed its affairs?' See also the articles THE ERA OF EARLY DISCOVERY; and Cost MERCE, TARIFFS AND TRANSPORTATION. •