180 REPORT OF THE ^ No. U 



tlement duties was required. Changes in the system were made from time 

 to time, generally in accordance with regulations or instructions issued by 

 the Home Government, with the object of checking the prevailing laxity, 

 and securing some substantial return for the lands granted. 



When Hon. Peter Robinson was appointed Commissioner of Crown 

 Lands in Upper Canada in 1827, he was instructed by the Lords of the 

 Treasury that all public lands were to be sold by auction, and to be paid 

 f')r by instalments without interest. 



The Canada Coinyany. 



This system was slightly modified in 1833 by requiring the payment of 

 interest on unpaid portions of the purchase money. The ill success of the 

 Government land policy as a means of "promoting settlement induced them 

 in two conspicuous instances to delegate to others the disposal of large areas 

 of the Crown Domain. An extensive tract in the western portion of the 

 Province was placed under the entire control of Colonel Talbot, and the 

 whole of the Crown reserves, and 1,100,000 acres in one block were sold to 

 the Canada Company. 



Clergy Reserves. 



The evils resulting from allowing vast areas to fall into the hands of 

 speculators who ma-de no improvement was further aggravated by the policy 

 of setting apart Crown and clergy reserves, the latter constituting nominally 

 one-seventh of the entire area, but frequently in practice amounting to a 

 much larger proportion. The result was to discourage the settler from mak- 

 ing a home in the wilderness on account of the large tracts held for specula- 

 tion, and where the improvements dependent upon co-operative labor could 

 not be undertaken. The Government policy, while it entailed unnecessary 

 hardships and inconveniences upon the settlers, did not in the end benefit 

 the favored classes who were permitted to monopolize extensive areas of land 

 with an eye to ultimate profit. The conditions of occupancy had been made 

 so onerous that there was no sale for the property they had regarded as an 

 easily-acquired source of wealth. On this point, Mr. Buller says: — 



''Even during the period, however, within which thes^e grants were 

 made, the grantees began to discover that the very great facility with which 

 land could be acquired rendered its possession well nigh valueless. To settle 

 their grants was impossible without a large immediate outlay, for the pur- 

 poses of affording settlers the means of communicating with each other and 

 with a market. This work, however, could be undertaken by no one 

 individual with effect, unless the other grantees, across whose lands the 

 road must pass, joined in the work, and even had this been done the prac- 

 tice of making Crown and clergy reserves, and thus withholding from set- 

 , tlement two-sevenths of every township, imposed upon the proprietor of 

 the remaining land so much additional expense for which he could never 

 expect any return. The grants, too, were so utterly disiJroportioned to the 

 population and wealth of the Province, tliat even if all the grantees had 

 set to work in good faith to settle their lands according to the terms of the 

 grant, they must have been stopped by their inability to obtain settlers." 



This was written more especially with reference to thf land practically 

 locked up from settlement in Lower Canada by the operation ol the system 

 of leaders and associates, but it was equally true of the results obtained in 

 Tfpper Canada by the practice of profuse and indiscriminate land granting. 

 Concerning the extent to which the land of the latter province had been 

 parted with by the Government in excess of the demands for settlement, 

 the same writer savs : — 



