Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/19

Rh national government. It is clear that it must connect, indissolubly, the question of a government with that of the boundary, and render any satisfactory solution of the former impossible until the settlement of the latter. The framing of any kind of a plan of government that would really be efficient without giving cause for offense to the partner to the title of the land must be a problem of the most difficult nature, as it was found to be. And the problem was still further complicated by reason of the fact that the question of boundary belonged to the executive part of the government, while that of the formation of a civil government belonged to the legislative. And then, too, by virtue of its being thrown into the realm of international affairs, the formation of a civil government was delayed because of its connection with that complicated balancing of interests which always characterizes diplomatic procedure, where settlement of questions is slow and ofttimes accompanied by national friction.

To joint occupancy also must be attributed the throwing into close relationship of two different and antagonistic types of life. There was in the first place the difference of nationality, which, in view of the feelings engendered in the struggle for independence and the war of 1812, did not promise cordiality; there was the difference of industrial systems which brought into sharpest and most bitter conflict the ably managed monopoly of the English company and the independent American trader or trapper with his idea of free competition and equal right to operation in the region jointly held. And lastly, there was the difference in regard to the treatment of the native races. The English found it mostly to their interest to leave things as they were, and to keep the country a wilderness, suitable for a trapping ground for many years to come, while the Americans aspired to better