RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 181 



largely by experts. The tendency in Canada in administration has 

 been to adopt the American system of mixing up legislative and ad- 

 ministrative functions in such a way that there is no clear line of 

 demarcation between them. This has been an effect in preventing 

 land development to be controlled as efficiently and economically 

 as it could have been under a sounder system of national and parti- 

 cularly of local administration. 



FEDERAL METHODS AND ADMINISTRATION 



Whatever methods and administrative machinery may exist or 

 be adopted by the Federal Government for planning and developing 

 the territory over which it exercises direct jurisdiction as owner, 

 or in connection with the planning and development of lands held by 

 private owners, over which it exercises the supreme powers which are 

 vested in a national government, these methods are certain to have 

 a great influence on those adopted by lesser authorities, corporations, 

 and individuals. Moreover, whatever action the Federal Govern- 

 ment may take in extending or in restricting the means of distribu- 

 tion, or in controlling and directing immigration, may have the 

 effect of stimulating either good or bad conditions of land settlement. 

 The results of Federal methods and action in the past have been more 

 or less satisfactory and criticism of them should be tempered with 

 recognition of the difficulties which have had to be surmounted. 



The building up of a new country in any other part of the civi- 

 lized world has probably not been carried out with fewer mistakes 

 or with less political corruption than is the case in Canada. But 

 even if we could claim that the methods and action of past govern- 

 ments were the best that could have been devised, that is no reason 

 why they should not be made the subject of reform if, as a result of 

 the practical experience we have gained, and in consequence of new 

 conditions that t have arisen, we are now able to detect the imperfec- 

 tions of the system we have hitherto pursued. "The science of govern- 

 ment," says Macaulay, "is an experimental science and, like all other 

 experimental sciences, it is generally in a state of progression." Re- 

 ferring to political progress in England he said: "The very considera- 

 tions which lead us to look forward with sanguine hope to the future 

 prevent us from looking back with contempt for the past. We do 

 not flatter ourselves with the notion that we have attained perfection, 

 and that no more truth remains to be found." 



Progress involves change in matters of government and in mat- 

 ters of administration as in other things; and when proposing changes, 

 for the future we may be showing more respect for the past than i: 



15 



