Making the fur fly

Martin Jacomb

MERCHANT PRINCES by Peter C. Newman Viking, £20, pp. 436 If you like your history with a strong, straightforward storyline, then the history of Canada is the thing for you; and if you like it heavily seasoned with greed, violence, lust and courage, the story of the Hudson's Bay Company is the best place to go for it.

A shelf in my library is reserved for corporate histories given to me by company bosses obviously burdened by not-much- wanted copies. Most of them are unread- able. Peter Newman's history of the Hudson's Bay Company is an exception (it is unauthorised); this, the third and final volume, is an enthralling read.

The Hudson's Bay Company was found- ed in 1670 by Royal Charter granted in response to a wonderfully entrepreneurial idea. In those days every man had to have a beaver hat; but the French controlled the mouth of the St Lawrence, which was the only way into Canada. The idea was to find a way in through Hudson's Bay. The Bay itself had been discovered in 1610 by the intrepid Henry Hudson, who was cast adrift by his hungry, mutinous crew and never seen again.

Where he perished, the company of adventurers, for that is what the Charter called them, succeeded. With monopoly rights over all the lands draining into Hud- son's Bay, (four fifths of Canada), they conquered the climate, the terrain and the French, and they prospered. In the process, they established trading posts which even- tually took the Company into retailing. Later on there were enormous profits from land sales, oil and gas.

This volume starts in 1870 with the story of Donald Smith, later the First Lord of Strathcona. From humble beginnings in Scotland, endowed with vision and energy coupled • with ruthless and unscrupulous business methods, he rose through the ranks in Canada and after 50 years in HBC's service, became its Governor for a further 25 years. Realising that the settlers would drive out fur-trading, he redirected the company towards land, agriculture and retail. He held numerous appointments, made a vast fortune and eventually became High Commissioner in London. He died in that office (at the age of 93) because no one wanted to have him back in Canada.

But the Hudson's Bay Company missed out. His other conflicting interests absorbed too much of his effort. He was far keener on building the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and making land profits for him- self as it was built. (Physically maladroit, he failed to drive in the last spike, and bent it; was this symbolic?) Strathcona's financial and commercial morality would not stand up today. Breach- es of trust, insider dealing and double crossings occur regularly. Conflicts of interest were constant. He was creative but a crook.

His Presbyterian conscience sometimes pricked. Early on, he married the wife of one of his companions; but there was no prior divorce. He claimed that the man who had married his wife to her first husband was not properly qualified and that the marriage was therefore invalid. At her marriage to him he performed the ceremony himself, believing he could do this as a lay preacher. But he was obviously less than confident, and married her no less than three further times; he did this each time a special level of respectability was required, the last time on his death bed.

With business entirely in Canada, the grandees on the Board in London began to lack the commitment and drive to exercise their authority over the increasingly in- subordinate Canadians. Relations between Canada and London became uneasy. When things got bad in 1931 Montagu Norman got Sir Patrick Ashley Cooper appointed Governor. But the strong-minded Canadian boss, Philip Chester, disliked the patronising, vice-regal manner of Ashley Cooper and matters deteriorated. Event- ually it turned out that Cooper had his hand in the till, and respect for London never really recovered. An assumption was born that the headquarters of the Company should be moved to Canada.

Disputes broke out in the board room. To end them Tony Keswick was made the Governor. This huge, witty and inspiring adventurer was universally admired. But although he knew that the transfer to Canada was inevitable, he did not like it. He could not bring himself to supervise the act, and resigned in favour of Derick Heathcoat Amory, then recently retired High Commissioner to Canada.

The new Canadian board wanted to rid themselves of their British past and started expanding hell for leather. To demonstrate their confidence, the Company bought and built department stores in all the major towns, raising enormous borrowings. Restraint urged by British directors (of whom I was one) was brushed aside.

The department stores never made enough to pay the costs of all this borrow- ing and in the end the great old Company became the object of the takeover fever which gripped Canada in the late 1970s. Eventually (1978), the Thomson family bought control. At first nothing changed. Ken Thomson (Lord Thomson of Fleet) disliked the fur trade intensely but took no steps to get out of it. But in the end the losses from department stores became so heavy that something had to be done. The fur business, all the northern stores, the property interests and all the oil interests were sold, leaving the Company with noth- ing except its retail business.

The picture Newman paints of Thomson is most interesting. 'Tight-fisted' and dedi- cated only to multiplying his fortune quiet- ly, he is obviously no ball of fire. But can anyone talk about their dog the way he is said to about Gonzo? Someone is pulling someone's leg.

Peter Newman is boringly impressed by Thomson's riches. Who cares if he is the world's eighth richest man? (Anyone who knows anything about money knows those tables are rubbish.) But Ken's son David does sound more like it.

It is a fascinating tale. Did the Hudson's Bay Company destroy the environment in the North? Certainly the Inuits became trappers instead of hunters and gathered

'If I've told you once I've told you 2,572,491,993,512493,447,233,472,385,119, 854628,449,354,450,284,118,385 times not to do that.'

into communities and had to learn about private property. But the stories about sharing of wives are somewhat exaggerated. At least the Bay people in charge of the trading posts were decent men. And they must have laughed at the missionaries. To Inuits freezing all winter, the heat of hell sounded rather heavenly; and as for walk- ing on water, they do it most of the year.

Peter Newman is compulsive reading and his respect for money and the aristocracy do not intrude too much. He remains objective, aware of the romance of the Company's traditions, but unaffected by it. He does not know anything about mathematics, though. Even my worst investment has not declined by 800 per cent and no one else's has either.