228 REPORT OF THE No. 3 



has or kas not been convicted, or be or be not amenable to justice and shall 

 be liable to the same punishment as the principal offender." 



The remaining sections provide that the Act shall not affect any civil 

 proceeding against the offender, or prevent the adoption of other criminal 

 proceedings. 



A more stringent measure was adopted, applicable to Lower Canada 

 only, by which it was provided that any person found in a forest reserved 

 for firewood, sugar-making or other purposes, or on any road in its vicinity, 

 with any tree or part of a tree in his possession, might be taken before a 

 justice of the peace and, in case of failing to satisfy the latter that he came 

 lawfully by the property, fined not more than eight dollars over and above 

 its value. 



Increasing Revenue. 



The report of the Hon. P. M. Vankoughnet, Commissioner of Crown 

 Lands for the year 1859, presented in 1860, contains some interesting details 

 as to the development of the system and the expansion of the lumber indus- 

 try. The amounts accruing due for ground rents, timber dues, and slide 

 dues for four years were as follows:— 1856, |262,872; 185T, |289,839; 1858, 

 1232,624, and 1859, |316,656, indicating a steady increase in the volume 

 of the output. The Commissioner said concerning the adoption of the auc- 

 tion system : — 



Auction Sale Residts. 



'Whenever there has been any demand for timber berths, and it was 

 at all likely that any competition for them existed or would be excited, 

 recourse has been had to the plan of disposing of them by public auction. 

 This method has been attended with the best results in the St. Maurice ter- 

 ritory where a sale was made last fall. Fourteen berths, containing an 

 area of 572 square miles, were sold, realizing the sum of $2,569 for bonus 

 and ground rent, besides the sum of 1457.50 payable to the St. Maurice 

 Road Fund. The bonus varied from |5 to |1,200. The berths were dis- 

 posed of to practical lumberers, who are all working them this winter, thus 

 restoring to the St. Maurice a trade which had departed almost entirely 

 from it. This sale was made under regulations, different from those which 

 had been previously in force in that section; a simple bonus, payable at the 

 time of sale, in addition to the ordinary ground rent being called for as the 

 measure of competition." 



Land Sales to Speculators Cancelled. 



The fraudulent cutting of timber by squatters and pretended settlers 

 continued to be a source of trouble to the administration in spite of all 

 efforts to repress the practice. On this point the report. said: — 



* 'While every means at the disposal of the Government is employed to 

 facilitate settlement, strong measures have been adopted, as the occasion 

 presented itself, to check the inroads of individual speculators upon par- 

 ticular localities, under pretence of settlement, when in reality their only 

 object has been to despoil the land of the timber. The Department has 

 not hesitated to cancel sales thus obtained when the facts have been estab- 

 lished. The holders of timber limits are often subjected to attacks of this 

 description by parties who enter upon their limits, select the best timbered 



