vi KEPOKT OF THE No. 3 



Sales. 



During the fiscal year eudiug 3ist October, 1917, there were disposed of for 

 settlement purposes under Part I, of the Public Lands Act, approximately 104,000 

 acres, an area slightly in excess of the previous year. Tho number securing farms 

 in Northern Ontario throughout the Temiskaming and Hearst Sections was, as 

 might be expected, somewhat less than the preceding period; When the war con- 

 ditions are considered and the labour and industrial situation is taken into account, 

 with the demand for the application of productive forces apart from the farm and 

 field, it is a source of gratification to find that over 650 new land seekers purchased 

 farms in Northern Ontario in the past year. With immigration inactivity the 

 source of supply for colonists must necessarily be very largely, if not wholly, our 

 own Province, and with this limited field before us it cannot be reasonably ex- 

 pected that land settlement will, during the progress of hostilities, attain anything 

 like the standard it should reach in normal times. The universal appeal on the 

 part of governments and astute economists throughout the British Empire has, 

 undoubtedly, set many thinking and urged numbers to seriously consider the neces- 

 sity of trekking back to the land. 



Hundreds of Northern Ontario settlers are serving their country at the front, 

 and many have already paid the supreme sacrifice. The Department has, since 

 the outbreak of the Great War, extended to the enlisted soldier protection against the 

 jumping of his claim, and will, on his return, render him every opportunity of 

 meeting the necessary requirements incidental to acquiring absolute title to his 

 land. 



For the first time in its history the annual report contains in detailed form a 

 statement showing the different land agencies throughout the Province, with the 

 townships comprising each and the number of land transactions recorded in town- 

 ships other than Free Grant. A cursory glance will disclose the number of sales, 

 patents, etc., in the respiective townships and hereafter the public will have ready 

 access to this information, as it has always had to similar information in respect 

 of Free Grant operations. With a view of checking up spurious land holders, who 

 pose as bona fide settlers and of eliminating them to make way for active farmers, 

 the Department made a special examination of some of the more important town- 

 ships on the Transcontinental Railway. This resulted in cancelling a number 

 of claims and withdrawing from further sale the townships of Calder, Shackleton, 

 Eilber, Fonrnier and Kendal. These areas may later on be utilized in dealing 

 with a further development of the Eeturned Soldiers' Scheme. (See Appendix 

 No. 15.) 



Consideration has been given to the question of more carefully scrutinizing the 

 class of individuals seeking land. 



In the sale or allocation of Crown Lands of the Province each applicant has 

 always been required, preliminary to being eligible for land, to make an affidavit sub- 

 scribing to certain statements as to his age, his desire to become a settler, and his 

 intentions of performing the settlement duties as prescribed by law ; but the would- 

 be settler has not been called upon heretofore to state his birth-place, his nation- 

 ality or his intentions to become a British subject, if not already one ; nor has any 

 provision in the past been made requiring a declaration of obedience to all the 

 Jaws in force in the Province, both Dominion and Provincial. 



In the absence of such data as implied in the last mentioned requirements, it 

 has been impossible to keep fully seized in each case of important facts as respects 

 the individual applicant, whose desirability as a settler is most essential. 



