46 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



Another influence was of a political rather than of an engineering 

 character. A regular and comprehensive system had to be adopted 

 to enable large areas to be surveyed in advance of settlement for 

 government purposes. Population had to be attracted by the offer 

 of free homesteads or cheap land, without time and thought being 

 given to the planning and classification of the land for economic 

 use and development, or to the distribution of the population to secure 

 successful and permanent settlement. The population thus attracted 

 or anticipated, gave a stimulus to both private and public speculation 

 in the development of natural resources and means of transportation. 

 Everything that contributed to that stimulus was encouraged, and 

 anything that militated against it became an object of criticism as 

 an interference with the free play of natural forces. Having regard 

 to this speculative tendency, and to the need for meeting the competi- 

 tion of other countries in attracting population, the kind of planning 

 or surveying adopted probably served its purpose. But it permitted no 

 discretion or intelligence to be exercised by the surveyor beyond 

 what was required to accurately define and locate the boundaries 

 according to a rigid and inelastic system. 



Proper planning should follow no hard and fast rule. It should 

 intelligently dispose the boundaries of at least the smaller divisions 

 of land to suit industrial requirements, to conform to the natural con- 

 ditions and physical features of the locality, and to provide for the 

 most economical, convenient and healthy development. The Ameri- 

 can system, adopted in Canada, is unsound, to the extent that it 

 falls short of this standard, even if it could claim to be simple and accu- 

 rate and to have succeeded for a time in attracting population by specu- 

 lative means. Of course, it is not claimed that a new country can be 

 developed without speculation, or that properly regulated speculation 

 is injurious.* What is injurious is when speculation is the object of 

 development. Every large railway enterprise is a great specu- 

 lation, but, if the sole object in constructing a railway is to create 

 and speculate in land values, it may become a social pest instead of 

 an instrument of sound development. A government may be a specu- 

 lator of an injurious kind if it stimulates immigration and land settle- 

 ment without proper plans of development, and without proper regard 

 to the social and economic needs of the settlers, although it may re- 

 ceive no actual coin in the process. The proper object of develop- 

 ment should be production based on healthy living conditions, and 

 not the mere accretion of numbers. When that is the object of a 



* See Chapter IV. 



