1907 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS, FORESTS AND MINES. 185 



to the prevalence of the practice of buying timbered lands instead of tak- 

 ing out licenses, and the resultant loss to the revenue. 



Q. "Does not the present facility of obtaining large blocks of land, 

 and at low prices tend to diminish the amount of this revenue by making it 

 more advantageous to individuals to purchase land for the sake of the tim- 

 ber only, than to pay for licenses? 



A. "I should say so. Cases have occurred in which land has been 

 bought merely for the timber, upon a calculation, of course, that by this 

 means the timber would be obtainable at a cheaper rate than if it had been 

 cut under license. I can mention that of a company of Americans, who 

 purchased from private individilals some thousands of acres in the township 

 of Onslow, at the rate of, I think, 10s. per acre, which I do not conceive 

 could bear any proportion to the value of the timber. Many similar cases, 

 though to a smaller amount, have occurred within my knowledge; and the 

 temptation to do this was very great, because wh^n the purchaser had paid 

 the first instalment and obtained his location ticket, he could proceed to 

 cut the timber, and the only penalty for not paying the other instalments 

 was the resumption of the land, about which he was very indifferent. This 

 was unfair to those who cut timber under the licenses." 



Present License System, Advised. 



Q. "Has any method occurred to you to prevent the practice?" 



A. "The only method that has occurred to me is that Government 

 should hold these lands which are generally unfit for settlement and merely 

 sell the timber upon them." 



According to a statement made at this investigation by Richard Hill 

 Thornhill, Chief Clerk of the Crown Lands Office for Upper Canada, the 

 gross amount received by the Government of the Province in timber duties 

 from the appointment of the Surveyor General of Woods and Forests in 1827, 

 up to January 30th, 1838 — a period of about ten years and a half — was 

 £58,086, 4s. lid. exclusive of defalcations amounting to upwards of nine 

 thousand pounds. Hon. Charles Buller's report on the Public Lands and 

 Emigration, published as an appendix to Lord Durham's report, presents the 

 following conclusions based upon the large volume of evidence presented 

 during the investigation, the general tenor of which may be gathered from 

 the excerpts above quoted. 



After briefly reviewing the timber policy of the earlier days of the Pro- 

 vince, and the then recent attempts to derive a revenue from the issue of 

 licenses to cut timber, Mr. BuUer goes on to say regarding the forests : 



"I was unable to obtain any accurate information as to the probable 

 value of this property. From the evidence, however, of Mr. Kerr and of 

 Mr. Shireff, it appears that the quantity of timber upon the waste lands 

 of the Province is practically unlimited, and that, independently of the 

 consumption of this article in England, there exists at present a demand 

 for pine timber in the Northern and Western States of the Union, which 

 may be expected to experience a very rapid increase, and which can only 

 be supplied from the British North American colonies. 



"From the evidence of Mr. Kerr and Mr. Davidson and others, it 

 appears that the revenue which, under a wise and careful system of man- 

 agement, might have been derived from this property, has been needlessly 

 sacrificed by the practices adopted in the disposal of public lands. The 

 value of the timber upon an acre of land at the price of government licenses, 

 is frequently more than ten times .greater than the amount required to be 

 paid, in order to obtain possession of the land upon which the timber is grow- 



