300 COLONIAL POLICY. 



established throughout the colony, at a certain uniform rate per acre 

 in the first instance, which can be subsequently raised by application 

 to the provincial legislature, as each individual county may deem it 

 advisable under its peculiar circumstances. 



It must be recollected, as I have before stated, that one of the 

 great objects in raising a revenue from the land, is to prevent, as 

 much as possible, the speculator purchasing uncultivated tracts at a 

 low price, and keeping them out of the market until their value be 

 enhanced by the industry of the surrounding settlers. In Upper 

 Canada there is already a light tax upon waste land, but so small 

 that it has not the desired effect. The cultivated land is rated at one 

 vpound currency per acre, the uncultivated at four shillings currency, 

 and the tax is levied at the rate of one penny in the pound, thereby 

 taxing actually the industrious settler more than the absentee specu- 

 lator. I would rather reverse the valuation. No doubt this law was 

 passed with the benevolent intention of not taxing too high the settler, 

 upon his first locating himself upon his farm. Supposing his pur- 

 chase to have been one hundred acres, he would not be able to clear 

 annually more than five acres without assistance. It was very proper 

 to have had compassion upon the poor fellows. I guess the unin- 

 terested members of the provincial parliament, who felt so much for 

 the situation of the poor emigrant, were none of them possessed of 

 more than twenty or thirty thousand acres of excellent land, lotally in 

 a state of wilderness. An advantage, from this simple mode of taxa- 

 tion, is the great facility it affords of being collected. The number 

 of acres belonging to each man is known at the land-office ; therefore 

 no excise-officer is necessary, a receiver of taxes only is required at 

 the county town. It is usual to permit the farmers to commute their 

 taxes for labour ; this has its convenience, as the making of ro ds is 

 one of the principal expenses incurred, and the settlers have the 

 repair of the portion that is in their own vicinity, besides having to 

 clear, in the first instance, one half of the road in front of their own 

 lots. I subjoin an account of the mode of assessment for the collec- 

 tion of the local taxes, or district rate, in Upper Canada,* and I put 

 it to the impartial reader, whether the system does not engender 

 a future host of tax-gatherers, and whether it would not be more 

 prudent to adopt the easy mode I recommend, before the artificial 

 state of society and of property in that colony render it an imprudent 

 measure to alter existing customs. The townships for the most part, 

 in Upper Canada, consist of sixty-nine thousand acres, or nine miles 

 broad, by twelve miles long ; four of these generally form a county, 

 consisting of two hundred and seventy-six thousand acres. Provided 

 the whole county were in the hands of private individuals, according 

 to the above recommendation, the whole would be assessed uniformly ; 

 and, if rated at three pence per acre, the amount raised would be 

 3,450/. per annum a very ample sum. But when it be considered 

 that the greater portion of that money would be expended in im- 

 proving the country, by building bridges and constructing roads, and 

 that the amount raised would be generally in commuted labour, I am 



* See page 286, on Local Taxes. 



