192 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



In some western provinces there are local government 

 areas called "local improvement districts," with an organization of 

 a simple character, which seems to be suitable for more general adop- 

 tion in Canada, to secure a more gradual building up of the local 

 organization. In the future more reliance should be placed on local 

 machinery, but this should be accompanied by more and not less 

 activity by the province in supervising municipal affairs, with the 

 assistance of a skilled department. 



There are two classes of development in unorganized territory 

 which have to be dealt with. One is the agricultural settlement, 

 which is directed either by the Federal or a Provincial government 

 or by railway or land companies to whom grants of land are given. 

 The second is the development of towns and villages and the laying 

 out of townsites on land which has been alienated from the Crown. 

 With regard to the former, there does not appear to be any doubt 

 that the greatest need in new territory is to concentrate development 

 on as small an area as possible and within easy reach of existing means 

 of transportation. Only in very special circumstances should settle- 

 ment be permitted in isolated districts remote from railway communi- 

 cation. Comprehensive plans should be prepared of portions of each 

 province, for the purpose of showing the topography, classifying the 

 land, and determining the order in which different parts of it should 

 be opened for settlement. The principles on which such land should 

 be settled will probably vary in different parts of the country because 

 of the different local conditions. It should be one of the main ob- 

 jects, however, to secure that homesteads should not be granted in 

 more than one township in the same district until two-thirds or three- 

 fourths of that township was taken up for settlement, and that the 

 townships opened up first should be those nearest existing centres of 

 population and railways. Instead of giving so much land away the 

 government should make the farms smaller and devote more capital 

 to making good roads and assisting with the clearing of a larger 

 percentage of each farm. A plan of each township should be pre- 

 pared, with special regard to its topography and at least one good 

 connecting road made in accordance with the plan, between the farms 

 and the village centre or railway depot. To prevent squatters from 

 settling upon unplanned and isolated land, thereby becoming a men- 

 ace to the community owing to the danger of fire, and causing diffi- 

 culties in organizing consecutive development, it should be punish- 

 able for anyone to occupy land without government authority, except 

 in such locations as the government may determine. 



