464 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONT ELY. 



tleraent of the colony, determined to accept a moderate commutation. 

 Leniency or favor was invariably shown proprietors who had complied 

 in any degree with the conditions of their tenure. Yet this liberal 

 measure was unavailing the commuted arrears were not paid. Up 

 to 1833 but 6,000 had been received for quit-rents, whereas the total 

 due under the grants was 145,000. Meanwhile agitation on the sub- 

 ject among the islanders constantly increased, until the British Govern- 

 ment was again urged to quiet its perturbed little colony. 



Lord Goderich, Colonial Minister in 1832, made a thorough exami- 

 nation of the complaints of the islanders, embodying the result in a 

 lengthy dispatch. He found large tracts unimproved, in expectation 

 that their value would ultimately be raised by the exertions of those 

 colonists who were busy cultivating their property. Vast areas of 

 wild land separated farms from one another, the injustice being 

 heightened by absenteeism of the landlords. Lord Goderich pro- 

 posed that the quitrents due by the proprietors be exacted, and, as a 

 concession, should be redeemable at fifteen years' purchase. His pro- 

 posal was not acted upon, and the agitation on the island rose to an 

 extreme. All this, too, with peculiar political conditions. The local 

 Government, in the immediate presence of its governed population, was 

 extremely sensitive to popular discontent. Agriculture was the main 

 and almost the sole industry ; the tenants were not mingled with any 

 manufacturing or mercantile class, and the preponderant pressure of 

 their interests was very manifest in a legislative hall which stood 

 within an easy drive of the average island farm. The arm of law 

 was enfeebled. Rents were usually allowed to fall into long arrears 

 before resort was taken to legal measures of collection. It was com- 

 mon for a tenant to owe five to ten years' rent. Arrears, accumulated 

 through sixteen and even eighteen years, were sometimes brought 

 before the courts. Usually, in suits for rent, the landlord paid the 

 costs himself, and did not exact interest. Frequently proprietary 

 rights were disposed of to speculators for nominal sums. Every in- 

 dulgence by landlord to tenant was interpreted by the latter as a just 

 concession from the possessor of a faulty title. The cost of collecting 

 such rents as were paid was commonly about one fourth. 



For twenty-one years after Lord Goderich's vain recommendations, 

 the agrarian history of Prince Edward Island was one of ceaseless tur- 

 moil. In 1853 an act was passed by the Provincial Legislature for 

 the purchase of the estates of proprietors who might be disposed to 

 sell. Between 1854 and 1871 thirteen estates, aggregating 457,260 

 acres, were bought at the moderate average price of $1.31 per acre. 

 Of this area, 403,050 acres have been sold to 5,704 tenants, who have 

 paid, for their average holdings of 70 acres, prices ranging from 94 

 cents to $3.40, and averaging $1.76. This act of 1853, which depended 

 on the voluntary sale by proprietors of their lands, was too slow in 

 operation for the discontented islanders. They obtained the concur- 



