214 REPORT OF THE No. H 



Penalty for not Working. 



The principal change in the system created by the regulations was the 

 imposition of a ground rent, a measure almost universally favored by prac- 

 tical lumbermen as the best means of preventing the monopolization of 

 unworked limits. The deposit on account of dues was discontinued, and 

 in case the comparatively small ground rent should be insufficient to prevent 

 licensees holding their limits from year to year unoccupied, as might easily 

 be the case should the limits be specially valuable and the market dull, it 

 was provided that the ground rent should be doubled for every year that 

 the- limits remained unworked. The general principle of disposing of tim- 

 ber berths by grant to the first applicant, giving previous occupants who 

 had complied with the regulations the preference, was left undisturbed. 



Auction System Extended. 



But a particularly significant modification was introduced by the 12th 

 clause, providing that upon rivers where the cost of surveys rendered' it 

 advisable, preferences for licenses might be disposed of at an upset price 

 fixed by the Commissioner of Crown Lands, and in the case of competition 

 awarded to the highest bidder at auction. This is an important extension 

 of the principle adopted in 1842, and an advance towards the adoption of 

 the auction system as it now exists. 



To Preverit the Export of Saw Logs. 



Another noteworthy change in the law, interesting in view of the 

 importance attaching to the same question in the course of recent legisla- 

 tion and diplomacy, was the provision that all saw logs cut upon public 

 lands, if exported from the Province, should be paid for at double the 

 ordinary rate. This subject had been brought to the attention of Parlia- 

 ment during the session of 1851, when on the 22nd of May petitions from 

 TT. McKinnon and other lumbermen and mill-owners of Bayham and sur- 

 rounding townships, and from the municipality of Bayham were presented, 

 asking for an export duty on unmanufactured pine logs and timber designed 

 for foreign markets. The county of Middlesex also petitioned for measures 

 to prevent the exportation of pine logs. On the 2nd of June the Hon. Mr. 

 Sherwood brought the matter up by an inquiry of the Government as to 

 whether they intended to propose such a duty, or to take any other steps to 

 protect the timber manufacturers of the Province against the injurious 

 practice, on the part of American citizens, of securing Crown Lands at a 

 low rate for the purpose of cutting timber to be manufactured in their own 

 country. Hon. Mr. Hincks' reply was to the effect that it was not the inten- 

 tion ^of the Government to propose an export duty on saw logs, but that steps 

 had been taken to prevent the destruction of timber on the Crown Lands. 

 The embodiment in the regulations of the clause respecting the double duty 

 on saw logs cut for export was no doubt the result of this agitation, which 

 appears to have excited very little public interest beyond the circle of those 

 immediately concerned in the trade. 



Tnicreased Revenues . — Red Pine Values. 



The beneficial effects of the more stringent policy inaugurated by the 

 new resrulations, were not long in manifesting themselves. There was an 

 immediate and considerable increase in the revenue from timber licenses. 



