[Sidenote:  Aboriginal tribes.]

It is painful to turn from reviewing the progress of the European population and their descendants established in this portion of America, to contemplate the condition and prospects of the aboriginal tribes.  It cannot, I fear, be affirmed with truth, that the difficult problem of reconciling the interests of an inferior and native race with those of an intrusive and superior one, has as yet been satisfactorily solved on this continent.  In the United States, the course of proceeding generally followed in this matter has been that of compelling the Red man, through the influence of persuasion or force, to make way for the White, by retreating farther and farther into the wilderness; a mode of dealing with the case which necessarily entails the occasional adoption of harsh measures, and which ceases to be practicable when civilisation approaches the limits of the territory to be occupied.  In Canada, the tribes have been permitted to dwell among the scenes of their early associations and traditions, on lands reserved from the advancing tide of White settlement, and set apart for their use.  But this system, though more lenient in its operation than the other, is not unattended with difficulties of its own.  The laws enacted for their protection, and in the absence of which they fall an easy prey to the more unscrupulous among their energetic neighbours, tend to keep them in a condition of perpetual pupillage, and the relation subsisting between them and the Government, which treats them, partly as independent peoples, and partly as infants under its guardianship, involves many anomalies and contradictions.  Unless there be some reasonable ground for the hope that they will be eventually absorbed in the general population of the country, the Canadian system is probably destined in the long run to prove as disastrous to them as that of the United States.  In 1846 and 1847 the attempt was first made to establish among them industrial boarding schools, in part supported by contributions from their own funds.  If schools of this description be properly conducted, it may, I think, be expected that, among the youth trained at them, a certain proportion at least will be so far civilised, as to be capable of making their way in life without exceptional privileges or restraints.  It would be, I am inclined to believe, expedient that any Indian, showing this capacity, should be permitted, after sufficient trial, to receive from the common property of the tribe of which he was a member (on the understanding of course that neither he nor his descendants had thenceforward any claim upon it), a sum equivalent to his interest in it, as a means to enable him to start in independent life.  The process of transition from their present semi-barbarous condition could hardly fail to be promoted by a scheme of this description if it were judiciously carried out.

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