Every Sunday, we are looking back at editorials from our predecessor newspaper, The Daily British Colonist and Victoria Chronicle, in 1867.
As Confederation ticked closer in the east, Victoria was more concerned about the location of the capital of the combined colony after the previous year鈥檚 merger of British Columbia and Vancouver Island.
If we peruse the proclamation of the 14th of February, 1859, which is referred to as a pledge of the legislature as to the locality of the capital, we find that it deals with three matters 鈥� namely, Crown lands, gold claims and the capital of British Columbia.
We find, moreover, that the main object of the last part appears to be to state that New Westminster is to be the capital instead of Langley, and it indemnifies lotholders at the latter place by giving them town lots as compensation in the former.
But we seek in vain, and no wonder, for anything approaching to a promise that in the event of union with Vancouver Island, New Westminster was to be the capital of the united colony.
The words made use of are: 鈥淚t is intended with all despatch to lay out and settle the site of a city to be the capital of British Columbia鈥� and the friends of New Westminster are bound to make out that this constituted a promise by Sir James Douglas, and that he intended to convey such promise (for this also is essential) that New Westminster should in all events be the seat of government.
The bare idea that Sir James intended that whenever union should take place Victoria should be supplanted by New Westminster, and that he should have issued the proclamation with that object in view, is enough to cause a smile with anyone who knows the colony.
The rapid and steady rise of Victoria under his administration, the high prices of her town lots and the numerous substantial stores built during that prosperous period form the best proof as to which city was looked upon as the future capital of the united colony.
They who assert that 鈥減ublic faith and honour鈥� are at stake are called upon to make out that some promise was made that in any event New Westminster should be the capital, even if British Columbia was united to other colonies or states.
In short, that if annexed to her neighbours on her southern frontier, or, what we should greatly prefer to see, taken into the British North American Confederacy, the pretensions of the City of Stumps should continue unaffected, and that she should still claim to be the capital in preference even to San Francisco in the one case, and Montreal, Ottawa or Quebec in the other.
Of course, such a proposition is simply ridiculous, but we submit that it is no more than a legitimate conclusion necessarily to be drawn from the doctrine that 鈥減ublic faith鈥� and 鈥渉onour鈥� require that New Westminster should be the capital after union; this latter proposition, loading as it does to an absurd result, must therefore be abandoned as a fallacy.
But the matter may be put upon another, and, we believe, a wider ground.
We deny that the selection of a particular place as a capital necessarily imports that there is never to be a change, when substantial reasons exist for a removal.
The history of English legislation, from an early period, shows a constant effort to make laws continually conform to the ever-varying necessities of mankind.
Suppose at some future day a railway is made from Bute Inlet to the Rocky Mountains, and communicates with the eastern provinces, and that a large town is formed at the head of the inlet, whilst those along the Fraser River become deserted, must New Westminster still be the capital, notwithstanding the most intolerable inconvenience?
In truth, the legislature never does or can attempt to bind subsequent legislatures on this point. Such interference would be contrary to well-established principles, and must not be thought of in a colony.
A site for a capital may often be selected during the infancy of a new state, which time and circumstances will prove to have been inexpedient; and in this, as in other instances, as soon as we find we have made a mistake we should promptly correct it.
The time will perhaps come when population, as we trust, flowing in from the East, Victoria will in turn have to yield to some town in the Interior or the mainland, and find that what she took from New Westminster 鈥渋s given to another.鈥�
The Daily British Colonist and Victoria Chronicle,
April 9, 1867
