LOUIS RIEL, THE CANADIAN REBEL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2003, 30 May 1885, Page 2

LOUIS RIEL, THE CANADIAN REBEL.

['St. James' Gazettk.']

There is something startling in tho news from Canada, but it will only surprise those who thoupht that with Colonel Wolseley's "smashing" of the head of the Red River revolt they had heard the last of Louis Kiel. For nearly fourteen ■years this remarkable.. man has been practically an outlaw in his own country! . yet no Government of Canada durinjw these years has dared to lay hands on him. When, as President of the Provincial Government of the Red River Territory, he sanctioned the execution of the Orangeman Scott, he turned against himself the fiercest animosity of the powerful body of which he was a member. When Manitoba was constituted a province; of i; the Dominion, Riel was returned to. Ottawa as one of its representatives. At great risk—for Ottawa swarmed. with- Orangemen when it was known he was coming to affix his signature to the roll of legally, elected members—he came to the o&al and signed his name'intheParliaiMnt building. He left Ottawa unharmed, and went back to the United States/ The failure to carry out their threats discredited the Orange body, andgreatlydiminished their political influence. Those who feel interested in the details of the Red River expedition will find them attractively put forth in Buttler's " Great Lone Land" and Huyslio's "Red River Expedition." The movement now going on in Canada is one of more significance than appears on the surface, and has several causes, each in itself important. Tho first is that the Red River people have never forgotten that they were transferred, without, even being consulted, from a .'regime'which they enjoyed freedom in its widest ; sense, to another they knew nothing of, and which restricted both the individual and collective liberty to which they had been accustomed. Then the French portion of the community knew that with the change of system the predominance they had enjoyed must in a very' brief period disappear; and they were right. Another class looked with disfavor at the transfer of the Hudson's Bay territory to Canada; that was the Roman Catholic clergy in that countiy, They had lipped, with the surplus French Catholic population of the province of Quebec, to found in the centre of the Dominion a powerful French and Catholic community f»counterbalance tho rapidly-increasing English-speaking population of the other provinces, particularly Ontario. ' Here, then, were causes enough of dissatisfaction; but there were others yet even more important. The unprecedented rush of speculation in the northwest, the taking up of all the fertile lands, • tho construction of railways, all combined, disturbed the Indians, and the game on which they depended for subsistence, and drove them and the half-breeds into the great' wild north. And yet another element was added to those tioned—namely, the immigrants who* decoyed beyond the settlements by contractors'.agents by promises of oxtravagant wages, found themselves either compelled to work for starvation pay, or, as the latest reports show, received no pay at all for work performed. Here were grand materials for disturbance, which skilful men are turning to account. - Since last summer Riel and the others who aro with him in this movement have been in close communication with the Fenian leaders in tho Stakj, and with the heads of the revolujioflfy organisations which extended their branches tp Canada during last autumn. Riel aims at nothing less than the upset! ting(«f the present Gflveriinienti.il] ijie North-west, and tho establishment .of au independent Republic., If he is. aVsu.Qges.s.ful in ]p first movements asjieia reported, to have been, we must be pre pared to hair of bancls of sympathisers, crossing from the neighboring States of tho Unjon to hj§ assistance; and tho forces at tlie disposal of t])c Canadian Qovor-nnient aro inadequate to guard a line of frontier extending over 1,500 miles, If which can be crossed at as many points. » Whatever the result of tliis Canadian ■

business may be, ifc will be as well to understand that it is only part of a concerted plan of action directed against -this country, If it bo true, as stated, that Indians havo joined Riel in any, numbers —and there is nothing improbable in itthen wo may look for wild work' among the scattered settlements of that great territory, and of attacks on the CanadaPacific railway line at.any points; !