1907 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS, FORESTS AND MINES. 153 



feudatories and tenants." The more modem grants, the report goes on to 

 say, comprise the same reserves and conditions, but contain yet other stipula- 

 tions. One of these is as follows : 



Army Reserves 



"That provided the King has need of any part of the lands granted for 

 the Construction of forts, batteries, armouries, magazines or other public 

 works, he shall have the liberty to take such portion, together with the neces- 

 sary trees and timber, and fuel for the supply of the garrison in the area 

 of the granted lands without being held or obliged to make any compensa- 

 tion for it to the grantee. In many of the later grants the King reserves 

 to himself the right to take oak timber, masts and yards, and all other tim- 

 ber fit for the construction and equipment of his vessels without making any 

 compensation for it. And in one grant the King reserves for himself the red 

 pine to make mouldings (du godron)." 



Lmidlord and Tenant. 



The Seigniors, acting no doubt under the influence of Old World tradi- 

 tions, such as frequently maintain themselves longer in an isolated colony 

 than in their original birthplace, appear tc have exacted from their tenants 

 many conditions which were not strictly legal. They inserted extensive 

 reservations in the title deeds which were not warranted by the conditions 

 on which they were held from the Crown. The relations between the 

 Seigniors and their tenants, as the system fell into desuetude, continued to 

 be a vexed question in Lower Canada long after the cession of Canada to 

 the British, and were not finally settled until the passing of the Seigniorial 

 Act of 1854," which provided for ^he extinguishment by compensation of 

 the somewhat shadowy and indeterminate vestiges of the Seigniorial title to 

 lands, the occupants of which had practically become the owners. By this 

 enactment a special court was constituted to ascertain, as far as possible, 

 in just what particulars the claim of the Seigniors for compensation for the 

 relinquishment of all their privileges was legally valid. Among the num- 

 erous questions submitted to this tribunal by Hon. Lewis Thomas Drum- 

 mond, Attorney-General for Lower Canada, in order to arrive at a basis for 

 fixing the amount of compensation to be awarded, was the following relat- 

 ing among other matters to reservations of timber made in the grants by 

 Seigniors to inhabitants other than those specified in the -original grants 

 from the Crown. 



Seignorial Tenure. 



"In A^arious deeds of grant of lands held en roture, covenants are found 

 tending to establish in favor of the Seignior, reservations similar or analogous 

 to the following : — 



1. A reservation of the timber for the building of the manor-house, mill 

 and churches without indemnity. 



2. A reservation of firewood for the use of the Seignior. 



3. A reservation of .all marketable timber. 



Were these reservations, or any, and which of them, legally made, 

 and do they give the Seignior a right to be indemnified for the suppression 

 of them to be effected by the said Seignorial Act? " 



The summary of the judgment of the Court upon these points was as 

 follows : — 



