HERE can be little question that the first of remedial measures is to give Riel and his accomplices a fair but speedy trial. The mistake of 1870 must not be repeated. We then sought to conciliate before we conquered. Had political exigencies at the time not interfered, we might not have had the trouble we have to-day. The sympathies of race and religion, right and proper in their place, are worse than wasted on such a miscreant as Riel. The duty of the Government is plain: the guilty must be punished. The public sentiment, no less than its righteous indignation, will insist upon this. It is confessedly difficult to deal with those who have been inveigled into rebellion, and whose sense of social duty does not rise above the level of tribal morality. But the case is different with the leaders and instigators of the revolt. With them there is no question as to responsibility for their acts; and for those acts they must be punished. Justice means no less than this, and the demands of justice are imperial. We have no wish unduly to heighten the indictment against Riel and his seditious half-breeds; but there is little danger here of exaggeration. The enormity of their crime, and the utter recklessness and inhumanity of their conduct, can hardly be over-stated. To them we owe all the horrors of the period -the desolate homes, the stricken hearts, the foul murder at Duck Lake, the cowardly shooting of unarmed and trustful victims, and the long rows of new-made graves on the banks of the Battle River and the Saskatchewan. To them we owe, too, the atrocities of Frog Lake, the heaps of charred and unburied dead round the chapel of the mission station, the killing and mutilating of Farm Instructors and Mounted Policemen, the long and weary bondage of captive men, women and children, and all the murder and rapine which their cruelty has incited. For these things the leaders of the revolt must be brought to an account, and punishment will be salutary if it be sharp and decisive. But the bringing of the culprits to justice is a matter the country must leave in the hands of justice. In view of the approaching trials, it would be unseemly in us to hand over to the law those whom the law has not dealt with. Fortunately, the Government has appointed a gentleman to conduct the trials in whose competence and fair dealing the country reposes every confidence, and whose private character sheds a lustre on the profession he adorns. Into the hands of Mr. Christopher Robinson, Q.C., we may leave Riel and his confederates, with those whom he has cajoled into rebellion, in the full assurance that they will be righteously dealt with. * *The gentlemen associated with Mr. Robinson as Crown Counsel in the trial of the half-breeds and Indians implicated in the rebellion, are: Messrs. B. B. Osler, Q.C., of Toronto; Burbidge, of Ottawa; Casgrain, of Quebec; and Scott, of Regina. The gentlemen retained as Counsel for the defence of Riel are: Messrs. C. Fitzpatrick and F. X. Lemieux, of Quebec. The presiding Judge is Col. Richardson, Stipendiary Magistrate for the N.W.T. We have said that it will be difficult to deal with the rebellious Indians. That we have been spared a general Indian uprising, and that the half-breed insurrection has not entailed upon us a war of races, we have not to thank Louis Riel. In this matter there has been a signal deliverance. The greatness of the danger which Providence has averted from the country calls for profound thankfulness. Considering the natural restlessness of the tribes, the native propensity to steal and to murder, and the alluring prospect held out to them of plunder, it is a marvel that the demon of sedition has not wrought greater havoc. These and similar reflections will be present to every mind that gives a thought to the subject. Their prevalence, it is not too much to say, must have weight in extenuation of the crimes the Indians have committed. But although favouring circumstances have limited and modified the disturbance, the direct and indirect consequences of the insurrection have been calamitous. What their effect will be upon the country will depend much upon the remedial measures now to be adopted for its pacification. The first, though a tardy step, was a wise one-the appointment by Government of a Half-breed Commission.* This act of justice, long delayed, has already, we believe, produced good results. Why it was delayed, party and the henchmen of party, according to the shibboleth of their camp, will find an answer. The correspondence between the party and the answer-need we say it ?-is sure to be uniform and intimate. In this matter of delay lies the question of responsibility for the half-breed insurrection. To the heedless, to the criminal, inaction of Government we owe the recent troubles in the North-West. "The fault of the Administration," writes a well *The gentlemen who are acting on the Commission are: Messrs. W. P. R. Street, Forget, and Goulet. known publicist, in a late issue of The Week, "lay in protracted inaction." The thoughtful writer goes on to say: "The administration of the North-West, it is now certain, has been feeble, limping, and laggard. An army of officials has been sent from the East who were not always in sympathy with the people of the North-West; but the capital fault has been in a want of promptitude and vigour at the seat of the central authority. The North-West was not represented in Parliament; and the want of this safety-valve helped to make it possible for complaint to take the most objectionable of all forms, armed insurrection." This is the language of truth, as well as of sobriety and moderation. But much of what is here said is practically admitted by the chief organ of the Government. The Toronto Mail, in a recent article remarkable for its judicial view of affairs, blames "a rusty Departmental system," for withholding justice from those to whom it ought to have issued. This frank admission settles the question of responsibility for the troubles of the North-West, though upon a previous Administration, of the Opposition party, the journal lays a portion of the blame which, speaking for its own side, it accepts. We cull the following sentences from the article referred to: * * * It has never been denied by The Mail that the Métis had good grounds for complaint. In spite of the manifest and unanswerable logic of the half-breed case, the Department for years and years steadily refused to move in the matter. It was a tangled question; it would involve the appointment of a commission and no end of trouble; St. Albert and St. Laurent were far distant dependencies without political influence; it was a claim that would be none the worse for blue-moulding in the pigeon-holes. This was the way in which the officials treated the just demands of the Métis, and we agree with Mr. Blake that their negligence was gross and inexcusable, and contributed to bring about the insurrection. But, and this puts him and his case out of court, Mr. Mackenzie was just as much to blame as Sir John Macdonald. The Métis * * * * * * say that they began pressing for the fulfilment of the agreement implied, if not expressed, in the Manitoba Act as far back as 1872; that they renewed their efforts in 1874-5. But it was all to no purpose. Neither Grit nor Tory officials would attend to them. The vis inertia of the Department was immovable. We repeat again that the Departmental system under which such callous and cruel neglect of the rights of a portion of the community was possible, was wrong and should be censured; but as Reformers were responsible for it equally with Conservatives, how can one condemn the other? The Métis were disgusted with both." Need there be further wrangle over the question of responsi bility for the insurrection in the North-West? We think not. Both parties are implicated; and to both parties should come the lesson of honest and faithful governing. But the disaster is not a matter for parties now to fight over; it is a matter for the country's profit and instruction. We have seen where we have come short of our duty; and the enlightenment should be a guide to the future. There are problems in connection with the North-West still hard of solution, and difficulties likely to arise which the most assiduous efforts of Government will not avail to remedy. But luck may help when tact and good judgment fail. For a time at least the North-West must be governed by force; and here is a source of peril. But it is a peril that can be overcome by putting the military administration, as well as the civil, in good and competent hands. Let us look with a careful scrutiny at the local officials we appoint, and with a still more careful scrutiny at those we send up from the East. This, in part, is the lesson of the insurrection. If good is to come out of evil it is a lesson it will be well to heed. "Then the gazers of the nations, and the watchers of the skies, |