In this 150th anniversary of the creation of sa国际传媒, we are looking back at editorials published in our predecessor newspaper in 1867.
This week, the editors take another look at the notion that the United States might buy British Columbia. After William Seward, the American secretary of state, completed the purchase of Alaska, there was plenty of speculation about what his next target might be.
This attention was prompted by a burst of fake news.
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Mr. Seward has officially denied that he has made overtures for the purchase of British Columbia, and the Danish government has officially proclaimed that it has not agreed to dispose of its West Indian possessions.
Both rumours appear to have been written in the New York Herald鈥檚 favourite style and to be utterly devoid of truth or probability. We doubt, even, if Mr. Seward had any hand in promulgating either of the rumours.
He is too sensible to manifest his anxiety to effect a purchase when he knows that that anxiety would cause an enhanced value to be placed on the property.
As a proof of how well Mr. Seward can keep a secret, observe the quiet manner in which the purchase of Russian America was effected. Was there a single person connected with the British government or with the Hudson Bay Company 鈥� whose rights were directly affected by the cession 鈥� who dreamed that negotiations were going on?
No. The news of the transfer fell like a thunderclap, and was as great a surprise to the Americans in Washington as it was to us here within a few degrees of the ceded territory.
The fact is, if the American government once had designs on this territory, the New York papers by the publicity they have given the scheme and the importance they attached to the coveted territory, have prevented their consummation.
While, therefore, we do not for a moment believe an offer of the kind has been made, or, if made, that it would be entertained for a single moment, we cannot but deprecate the silence that the Imperial government has preserved throughout.
The American and Danish governments have both taken steps to officially deny the rumours so far as their own interests were affected; while the Imperial government has been content to let it go forth to the world that it has become so old and rickety as to wish to part with an important portion of its colonial empire; that to appease the wrath of its American cousin and settle the Alabama claims it is willing to relinquish its hold on the Pacific Coast, and to show its colonies on the Atlantic how they may become an integral part of the American republic, and by the imposition of a high prohibitive tariff cease to be customers for English goods.
We complain that these ridiculous yet injurious stories have been allowed to circulate for months without a word of denial from the Imperial government. They are thought, no doubt, to be unworthy of notice; and, as a general rule, they are.
But in this colony, we regret to say, there are many credulous persons who believe every silly canard they hear.
They are like the old fellow who related a wonderful story, and who when taxed with exceeding the truth, said he knew it was true because he had read it in the paper!
Now, we do not wish to assert that papers are habitually incorrect; but we do say that many things find their way into them that have no foundation in fact.
The reported sale of British Columbia is one of these; yet there are some in our midst who as implicitly believe it to be true as though they had stood by when the bargain was made and the 鈥渇orfeit money鈥� deposited.
This class, we believe, would be greatly benefited by a denial from the Imperial government.
Their minds are unsettled, and they will 鈥渞est and be thankful鈥� with nothing short of an official announcement by the British government that they have been deceived.
The Daily British Colonist and Victoria Chronicle
Sept. 9, 1867
