SPECULATIONS. 
403 
Different motives liave been assigned for this 
conduct on the part of the British government. 
In the first place it has been alleged, that the 
titles are withheld, in order to prevent specu¬ 
lation and land-jobbing from rising to the same 
height in Canada, as they have done in the 
United States. 
It is a notorious fact, that in the United 
States land-jobbing has led to a series of the 
most nefarious practices, whereby numbers 
have already suffered, and by which still greater 
numbers must suffer hereafter. By the ma¬ 
chinations of a few interested individuals, who 
have contrived by various methods to get im¬ 
mense tracts'.*--of waste land into their posses¬ 
sion, fictitious demands have been created in 
the market for land, the price of it has coiis.e- 
sliips, which contains the following paragraph: “ At .present 
u the matter remains in an unsettled state, although every 
step has been taken on my part to accelerate the comple- 
* 
tion of the business. Mr. D-’s patent, which was 
“ sent home as a model, is not yet returned. I received a 
<c letter lately from Mr. Secretary R-in which he in- 
forms me, that M. G-- is again returned to the sur- 
“ veyor’s office, and he assures me, that in conjunction with 
“ him, he will do every thing in his power to expedite mv 
“ obtaining a patent. The governor, he says, means that 
“ the land business should go forward,” 
* There have been many instances in the United States, 
of a single individual’s holding upwards of three millions of 
acres at one time, and some few individuals haye been known 
to hold even twice that quantity at once* 
