It was April 1867, and the pages of The British Columbian were consumed with the question: Which city should be the capital of British Columbia?
The answer, for the newspaper, was obviously New Westminster.
The upstart city of Victoria was being eyed as the capital city for the newly united colony, now that Vancouver Island had been incorporated with the mainland colony of British Columbia the previous November.
But The British Columbian just wasn't having any of it.
Arguments in favour of Victoria as the capital held no water, according to a lengthy editorial in the April 13 edition.
The editorial writer demanded to know: Had New Westminster been merely considered a "temporary" capital city until the union of the island and mainland colonies, then why had so much effort been expended upon its founding?
"The site was selected with an eye to military strength, and evidently with a view to permanency. It was laid off into several hundred lots, with spacious streets, avenues, crescents, terraces, gardens and parks," the editorial argued. "The whole was announced in Proclamations having the force of law, in dispatches, in the Government Gazette, and in official advertisements, as the capital, sold as such, and in every way treated as such; and the Queen was invited to bestow upon it a name, which Her Majesty was graciously pleased to do."
The editorial noted that the governor, though he was administering the affairs of Vancouver Island, had been ordered to remove to New Westminster (though, reportedly, that order was "evaded" and he and several of his officials continued to linger in Victoria in defiance of the orders of the Secretary of State).
"Why, it would have been absurd, under such circumstances, to order the Governor and his officials to reside here, inasmuch as they would have been little more than settled at the new capital when the contemplated incorporation would have involved another removal," the writer said.
"The survey and sale of town lots would, under such circumstances, have been a gigantic official swindle, and the victims would have had good ground for indemnity. There can be no question that New Westminster was selected with a view to its being the capital after the incorporation of Vancouver Island."
The writer's persuasive arguments to the contrary, the battle was already lost.
Sadly for community newspaper editors everywhere, the New Westminster v. Victoria showdown shows that a well-written editorial doesn't always change the course of history.
New Westminster is a city full of history — and that history includes a variety of community newspapers over its many decades.
In this weekly series, we're taking a look back at the headlines from some of those newspapers, shining a spotlight each week on a notable news story, person or moment from this week in New West history.
Watch for it online every Thursday.
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