The decrease of the Indian population has steadily advanced since the settlement of the east coast by the first Anglo-Saxon in the seventeenth century. The number of the native race at that date must be always a matter of conjecture. Catlin estimated it at that time to have been fourteen millions, and half a century ago he described it as reduced to two millions. All the early writers of Canada describe the populous condition of the Indian tribes. That they no longer present this character is undoubted. General Lefroy, in a paper read before the Canadian Institute, of Toronto, in 1858, estimated the total number of Indians in North America at 250,000. Even without intercourse with the white man, their desolating wars, the frequent scarcity of food and the want of knowledge of the means by which life can be preserved, all had their influence. As the country became more occupied and under the control of the European, their territory became narrowed, and hence the greater cause of quarrel arose. Then the Indians of the Mohawk and those of Lake Huron became mixed up in the wars of the English and French. During the revolutionary war with the United States and the war of 1812 the tribes took opposite sides, while there were whole races who lived in open hostility to the white man. Except in the North-West, they have almost passed out of mind. In Ontario they are seldom thought of, but in the neighbourhood where they are seen, nevertheless their number amounts to 18,000. In Quebec they attract greater attention; their number, however is only 12,000. In the Maritime Provinces they number 4,000. At present the estimated number of Indians east of the Rocky Mountains is 51,500; in British Columbia proper there are nearly 36,500; in the more northern Hudson’s Bay Territories, Labrador and the Arctic coast, 9,000. In the North-West, at no late date, there was much to unsettle confidence, in view of the rapid strides with which settlement was advancing, and in view also of the difficulty which appears inherently to attend the solution of this important problem in political economy; more especially when we consider the constant turmoil and difficulty experienced in the United States. But the solution has been found, as much else in life, by following the very simple principle of justice and honesty. There are now in the North-West under the immediate care of the Government 10,000 Indians. The proximate cost of beef and flour furnished them is twelve cents per head per day.