Ownership 359’ 
port to the United States has been doubled, amount- 
ing now to about half of the total export, and as we 
return of our own forest products to the extent of 
about 6 million dollars worth, a balance of trade for the: 
Canadian forest product of 12 million dollars is left. 
2. Ownership. 
When the French took possession of the country, 
all the land belonged to the king, and could be held by 
others only under feudal tenure, i. e. as a gift under 
obligation of counter service. The whole country 
was placed as a fief under the rule of the Hundred 
Associates, a company which also exercised a trading 
and colonizing monopoly, but made no success, and 
was dissolved in 1663. It was then that Richelieu 
introduced the system of seigniorial tenure, the land 
being divided into portions of from 100 to 500 square 
miles, usually with a certain amount of river front, 
and given outright to younger noblemen, favorites of 
the court, and clerics, who were, however, obligated 
to subgrant to colonists, thereby becoming so many 
immigration agents. These not only treated their 
colonists as tenants, exacting rent and service, but 
exercised nearly absolute jurisdiction within their 
domains, the colonists becoming virtually serfs or 
retainers of the seigneurs. This condition continued 
until 1854, when an adjustment of rights was formu- 
lated by the Seigneurial Tenures Act, and the govern- 
ment aided the “habitans’’ to secure their freedom by 
indemnifying the seigneurs. 
Under English rule, the granting of lands, without, 
however, the seignorial rights, was continued. In 
