188 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



should be adopted, as far as possible, even where it means the strength- 

 ening of one branch of government at the expense of another. In 

 those provinces in which the Federal Government is not responsible 

 for the administration of Crown lands there are still vast areas of 

 land available for colonization. More co-ordination would appear 

 to be desirable between the colonization, highway and municipal 

 departments of these provinces, so as to secure more efficient and 

 scientific land development. In the first place, no definite line can 

 be drawn between colonization and highway administration if the 

 planning of the province as a whole is properly undertaken; and in 

 the second place, the fact that unorganized territory has in course of 

 time to become organized suggests that the municipal department of 

 each province should have a definite policy, and the power to give 

 effect to it in regard to the system of land development, so that the 

 system will provide the right conditions for municipal organization. 



Provincial and municipal governments are primarily responsible 

 for the control of land development after the possession of the land 

 has passed into private hands. They have the control of the use of 

 the land so far as that use may affect the health of the people or 

 influence taxation. The evils which arise from private property in 

 land are too frequently of a kind which are produced by no other 

 form of private ownership; and take the form of the owners being 

 permitted to enjoy possession of their rights without having demanded 

 from them the obligations which these rights entail. 



It may be claimed that no province has properly safe-guarded 

 its future which fails not only to keep an up-to-date plan of its sys- 

 tem of transportation by waterway, railway and highway, but also 

 to maintain an expert staff continuously at work preparing schemes 

 for the extension and improvement of that system, and acting in 

 co-operation with the municipalities in controlling land development. 



In defining the highway system of a province different methods 

 have to be pursued, according to whether territory is organized or 

 unorganized, but whatever steps are taken to administer these dif- 

 ferent classes of territory there should be a director of surveys co- 

 operating with a director of planning, responsible for the complete 

 scheme of development for the province. The skilled department 

 should be in a position to prepare the plan of main arterial highways, 

 to properly plan the area so as to secure the best agricultural develop- 

 ment, and to approve or disapprove all plans for the subdivision of 

 such territory and all schemes for the laying out of new townsites. 



