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STOBY, CEBTAZNLY.

KIXGSTOX :

I'lUNTED AT THE DAILY NEWS OFFICE. 1872.

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The annexed pamphlet was circulated in 1872 in the hope that it would arouse atten- tion to the appalling destruction by fire yearly occurring in the Crown forests of Ontario, as well as to the conditions of settlement in the Free Grant Townships.

Something, perhaps, in the mode of pressing the question, because no one likes to be alarmed, — something of popular unconcern for grfevances, may haye led to the disregard with which the pamphlet was received.

Since its issue a large emigration from the Free Grant Townships has taken place. Pub- lic opinion has been directed to the subject of emigration generally by the reference to its extent, in recent debates in the House of Com- mons. Investigation will show that no incon- siderable element in the exodus is furnished by the townships which it is the professed policy of the Government to colonize.

The writer admits that the srbject mingles many considerations — some not unfavorable to this emigration, on the score of its advant- age to another section of the Dominion, and of its benefit to the emigrant as well. There are also obvious (to a traveller in the Free Grant Territory) very many cases in which the locatees have made gross mistakes in their choice of locations.

There remain however the majority of cases in which the settler struggles against condi- tions the hardship of which is unequalled out of Ontario and Quebec.

In Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, in Western Virginia, in every State of the Union, so far as the writer has been enabled to learn, the acquisition of a title to land entitles the buyer to the timber upon it. Without going abroad, the sale of timber has been a resource of enormous value to the farming community throughout Ontario, with the exception of the area subject to timber licenses.

The policy which allows a lumberman to cut timber where and in such manner as he pleases on a lot which a settler has chosen for his homestead can be best appreciated by those gentlemen in the Parliament of Ontario whose acquaintance with farming occupations enables them to form an opinion on the subject.

At most the- license holder pays th*^ Provin-

cial Treasury a duty on the which the settler would gla( pay. Should he abstain fro the Treasury and he would in view of the gradual increai grant of this right to the inalienable, inasmuch ns ad^ taken of his necessity to acq control of his license.

The writer cannot withhol tion upon the accession to li led to the enactment of the Ac In 1862 a committee of the I Province of Canada recommei should be allowed to sell pii progress of clearing, and eigl wards the recommendation w ject of legislation in this Prov

The subject of Forest Fir< connected with the subject o the law for placing settlers in Territory in a position - as tc equal to that of settlers in ot] Province, regard being had nance of the revenue froii] Thayne, an eminent expert in to timber, testified before a o Dominion House of Commons lowest estimate of the vearlj timber in the Ottawa Valley a lions of dollars.

The prevention of fires, it submitted, may be promoted of a system of inspection for e

(a) The use of precautionar railway companies operating through wild lands; the use o smoke stacks; the removal oi wood, and combustible mater tain distance from the track; wire fences.

(b) The compulsory destru wood in lumbering operatione removing it to lakes, or

(c) The compulsory use of for the manufacture of tar an< products trora pine and other

TBCRIPT.

ry a duty on the timber cut down settler would gladly be allowed to lid he abstain from cutting timber rv and he would eventually gain, tne gradual increase in value. The lis right to the settler ahould be , inasmuch as advantage would be B necessity to acquire a territorial lis license.

er cannot withhold hitt congratula- bhe acceesion to liberal views which nactment of the Act chapter 4, 1880. ommittee of the Parliament of the I Canada recommended that settlers tllowed to sell pine timber out in clearing, and eighteen years after- 'ecommendation was made the sub- dation in this Province.

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ject of Forest Fires is intimately

with the subject of amendment of

placing settlers in the Free Grant

a position - as to their rights - it of settlers in other parts of the •egard being had to the mainte- the revenue from timber. Mr. eminent expert in matters relating estified before a committee of the louse of Commons in 1878 that the late of the yearly destruction of le Ottawa Valley alone Is five mil- ars.

eution of fires, it is respectfully may be promoted by the adoption of inspection for establishing - se of precautionary expedients by

panics operating lines running d lands; the use of bonnets upon cs; the removal of stumps, brush ombustible material within a cer- e from the track; the erection of

ompulsory destruction of brush bering operations, by burning it, to lakes, or

mpulsory use of portable kilns ifacture of tar and other valuable m pine and other brush wood, or

{d) The charge against the license holder of the damages from fire within his limits unless the same should arise from uncontrollable cause occurring from beyond his territory, or be traced to the unlawful act of some offender. — [The statute of Gloucester made tenants liable to their landlords for destruction by fire.

(e) The assessment upon a township or se3- tion of a township of the damages sustained by a settler from fire arising beyond his lot, unless when traced to the unlawful act of another upon evidence sufficient to convict the offender. — [A precedent for legislation in this direction will be found in the English law which gave the right to compensation from the hundred or parish for certain felonious inju- ries unless the offender was brought to justice and convicted.

The adoption of harsh penalties, it is hoped, may be avoided by the introduction of a sys- tem of inspection and courts of enquiry for a few years. Much may be done by giving the settlers that interest in the preservation of timber upon their holdings which only the sense of property will procure. The utiliza- tion of the waste incidental to lumbering may be be cheaply experimented at public expense with the kiln of Matthieu, by means of which waste wood and pine loaves are carbonized with resultant commercial products — tar and pyroligneous acid — more than sufficiently val- uable to defray the expenses.

It is perhaps unnecessary to disclaim any political purpose for this publication. Our Crown Lands policy is traditional, and is part of the stock-in-trade taken over in 1867. For "all in authority" the writer has the highest respect and full confidence in their patriotism, even should it be sluggish in its action; and while not abating anything advanced for the cause he has espoused, desires that his argu- ment shall be considered impersonal. The reforms advocated will be adopted beyond doubt. It will be impossible to resist their exigency a few years hence. It will be wisdom t-o adopt them NOW.

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HARD TIMES IN ONTARIO.

A Pretty Story, Vertaluly.

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iKaUrtd iu^coraXng to Act of I'arlument of Cmnnta, h. n,e Yenr XK^l. fjy Jame. Shannon III the (ijjU)e of the Minister of Agriajllure.\

KINGSTON :

PttlNTKD AT TlIK DAII.V NKWS OFFICE. 1872.

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IMiEFACE.

1 am not romantic, liko tact«. A leading Canadian Politician says there is a prov^ rb: Men may lie, but circuni- stances cannot. Tlion^h a proverb be the wisdom of many, I say that circumstances do ol'ten lie. Witness — Telegrams, our Political Correspondent, our Liberal Land Policy, and Castles in the Air. If facts could not lie, hypocrisy would be impossible, and there would be no such epithets as Sham or Humbug.

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HARD TIMES IN ONTARIO.

CHAPTER I.

" There was a hardneHS in his cheek. There was a hardneBi* in hin eye, As if the man had fixed hio face.

!n many m eoiitnry jilaie,

Against the wind' and open Hky !'"

You isee a luati witli a fair (jiiHiitity of tlet?li .ihont liini, no spare timber lunvjvor, iniii-ciilHr, wirv; })(joi*ly, not meanly clad : also he has a pair of shoe-]>«"<<'k^i, warm mittens, a cheap far cap. In liis fiice, u sohw, serious look. The hue of the skin is iishy, the eyes dull with never a ailinimer of earnestness or tire. A very ordimuy looking man, 5 feet <> inclies, 140 lbs. weight. He will tell yon nothing l»ut facts. s]>eaking slowly, and iinconscions tliat there is anything remarkable in the facts. Let us hear what tliey are :

''Ten years ago I sfpiatted on the east half of lot — in the

— concession of • . 'Ilio lot was wild. I had heerd that

somebody had entered his name in the Crown Land office tor the lot, but folks told me to go on and clear, and that nobody

could bu}' the lot over me. 1 went to the otfice in and

offered t(t pay a few dollars I had saved by me as a tirst pay- ment, but the agent told me the surve}' wasn't settled, and he covildn't take the nxtuey. Me said John Smith had entered for the lot and J mnst get a (|nit-claim from him. John Smith. J said, had never been hecrd of iii them parts. The agent said I must get atHdavits to show that 1 was the tirst settle)-. I went hum and got two neighlxmrs to come to town and swear that I had done the lirst clearing on the lut. The agent took

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the affidavit in writin, and put it among liia papers and entered my name for the lot. I paid the taxes every year since, reglar, and I've got the receipts. Some time afterwards the lot was

"limited" and • lumbered on't in '65. I went again to

make a payment on the lot, but the survey wasn't right, and the agent wouldn't sell. I bought the timber from the limit- holder a few years. I've paid him altogether fifty dollars for ground rent ibr the timber. There's only ninety acres in tlie lot, great part on't rocks, but what's good <;ant be beat.

"I've had a power of sickness. I've buried two children. The doctor's bills I've paid would buy a good farm Is the country healthy ? Yes. I've never had a days sickness myself, but my wife's been bedridden nigh seven year.

"After I went to the lot I got a notice when the assessor come round that there was ten dollars back taxes on the lot. Other people got such like notices but said they didn't amount to anything. No one knew anyone who'd ever lived on the lot, and I've paid my taxes reglar.

" They've advertised the lot for sale for taxes. There's over fifty dollars back taxes made out of them ten. I went to the Council, and they said they'd withdraw the lot. I've come to the County Treasurer, and he says it's for sale next Friday.

"The Crown Lands wants back rent noAv the survey's made right, because the lot's clergy land. 1 have got a good log barn, a log house, two cows, a yoke of young steers coming on, and I've the loan of a yoke to break, and I've seven ewes. Off one of them I sheared wool 11^ inches long. I've got most forty acres cleared, and I don't owe anything I cant pay. I want to get a deed for the land, and I want the taxes settled somehow, and they tell me I'll have to buy the limits from the lumberman for three yeai-s after the land's paid for. Eiit I suppose I'll get the land some time."

My dear fellow. I thought, how you do lie. How all the facts about you lie. You live in a country of free scliools, but your young ones haven't seen the inside <jf one for more than three months in a year during the past three yeai's. That's all

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the schooling has beeu iu your iieighbourliood. It's two miles from where you live to the school house. There are twenty families near you within a (;ir(?]e whose circumference is about ten miles. You don't hear a preacher more than once in two months. What a pity you aint a heathen outright. You pay taxes to support our excellent municipal institutions. The taxes YOU do pay are never expended in your })art of the town- ship. It's too confounded poor, you know. Your township like many others has a considerable cpiantity of non-resident laud. Every sixth year or so a haul is made by the sale of this land for taxes. The non-resident land fund is the legitimate prize of that part of the township which elects the council, acciording to

-tlu' simple plan

Tlmtthej shoiilil get who have the power, And they should k«ep who (.-an.

You're in a part of the township where you've no business to be. Modern civilization's got no respect for you, because you're one of a minority. There's no court framed to supervise the working of our excellent municipal institutions. If in ten years your section has paid $l,00r> dollars taxes, out of which scarcely $100 have been returned to it directly or indirectly, it would be preposterous to assume that you should grumble about the misappropriation of the $90< », You are a consenting J^'irty to it. If you go to the Council, t])e3^'ll say you've " come from beyond sundown," and some prosperous fellow in the pride of his heart will tell, how " when he was out your way hunting he tramped about all day witJiout being able to see anything, till at last he spied a squirrel on top of a rock knawing at what he s'posed and what the sciuirrel s'posed was a nut, but on getting a little nigher, darned if it wasn't a little round stone the squirrel was knawing, and the tears wen? rollin' down its cheeks. lie left." You see what a funny thing poverty is. Tlie taxes you were never liable for have been compounded against you ; ten dollars have become fifty dollars in ten years. What if the arithmetic of the County Treasurer lies, you are too confounded poor, you know. If you sue, it nmst be in Jonua paujjenn.

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Do yon know what that means ? Don't know the meaning of the word pauper ? "No." Did you over beg ?

The man looks insulted and tliinks I am making game of him.

You see you are a positive lie. Suppose somebody does buy your land at the tax sale, you look healthy, and a man who can handle an axe and break oxen and boil potash like you, need never starve in this country. Oh ! my benighted fellow coun- trvman. whv don't you read the land advertisement of the Cen- tral Facility Railway '{ The capital required to rid your farm from the incumbrance of back taxes, the incumbrance of back rents, the iricumbrancc of the limit-holder, would settle you comfortably in the Western States. Why don't you read the Chancery Ile]iorts ( You would learn from them that equity can't unsettle the misfortune that has been settled upon you; and that if you've made a hard bargain with the Powers in Hifh Places, it is not tlie province of a Court of Justice to umnake a hard bargain. You must abide by it.

Well, yon say, asserting soiuetliing of a man's dignity, a man's scorn ol'i^ily and ]»atroiuige wIumi ]o> hand is hard and his stomach sound, yon nint so bad oil', after all. You get l)lentv to cat. <>f wliati You raise some rye and Inickwheat, some 'taties, and fatten acoui>le of hogs every year. Slap-jacks for breakfast and sui)per, rye bread vviien you want it, and pork alwavs. 'Taties the year round. The old 'ooman makes you a <»'ritty syrup of sand, water, nia))le sugar, and dried berries, which you tlrnk tiice. Of course it is. The sand keeps worms out of the intestinal canal. The sugar is carboraceous food, helps to rc]tair the waste of fat yon undergo when sweating over the })otasli-kottle. The Ix'ii'ies act as a condiment to pro- mote the flow <ii' the digesting juices. Philosophically speaking, vou are a well i'ei\ bi|»ed. How ii w(udd delight John Stuart Mill to see you eat your rve bread and shiji-jacks. What an admiralde lesson yt>u oiler to tlie stonnichi(,' rebellion of the English laborer who scorns all ]»read not of the fat of the kidnevs of wheat.

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You say you've seen Hard TimcR. Vuu never drink any more than's good for vou. If vou liad a Chanck you could get along, you think.

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CHAPTER II.

It's evident tlie man isn't cute. It takes a mighty sight of cuteness to get along in the ])aek woods. A man must be handy and strong with his axe. clever with saw, augur, and hammer, deft at liitching and hauling, cheery and wilful with oxen, smart with his plough among roots and stones and around stumps, — tireless ! He hardly known what fun is. His comfort within doors is coarse, kindly, rude. If his nature consort not with the nature around him lie must go to scliool to lier. He receives scant wage for all his labor. In fact he never gets his wages in full. By the time he has his farm cleared and everything snug about him, it is time to die that he may get rid of the ills that flesh is heir to. He has all his life long been an investor. He takes land worth nothing as land to him, — for the state in which he finds it is, that it is not fit to yield him anything without long and laborious preparation,— and he makes it worth to the country forty dollars an acre. The land never gives him back such return for his labour as he could get if he gave to days-work the same industry and thrift. He counts upon this, and so shapes his course. His end is to pro- vide for himself a home and independence. This last is what Ib uighest the farmer's heart: — to owe no man anything, to follow his own liking within the Itounds of reason, to be able '' to fear tlie face of no man," to bring up his children in like fashion. His love of home is subordinate to his love of inde- pendence. He is generally careless of the mere surroundings of trees, fields, cattle, and will sell everything or anything about him the moment he thinks he can gain by so doing.

The pioneer colonist is an adventurer, and to keep him "in tune" he must have fair play. Too proud to be patronized, too hard- worked and too much aloue to be noisy about politics,

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!iiB condition is one not to be estimated but on inspection. The tyrannous administration of the public land operates for the most part on men who have but little to lose and every- thing to gain. Ye rulers, is this your reason why

— " Fraud, and force, and iron will. Oppress the weak and helpless still ?"

I said I wasn't romantic. To sleep in a backwoodsman's shanty, wrapped in buffalo robes, horse blankets and all sorts of textile fabrics that can be got, to feel the frosty air through chink and cranny on all sides making its way to the fiery atmosphere encircling the red-hot stove, to eat of his simple fare of potatoes and buckwheat cakes, well greased from the bowl of hot lard in which swim scraps of fat pork, and wash down the unctuous food with tea browned by saleratus and maple sugar ; to see the grim cheerfulness of the man when, long before day break, he gets up, fires up, goes out to the oxen ; and having fed them, makes the forest ring with the strokes of his axe on the wood for the day's firing ; to see how the smoke from the stove-pipe hugs the little clearing walled in by trees, rising slowly as the day comes on ; — to see the tire- less patience of the woman as she tries to make the scant things neat and snug within for that brave fellow without, — these are enough to knock romance out of a man. To hear how he speaks of the Crown Land Department; how he wishes he could sell out and go west ; how he regrets that he had ever come into the woods ; how some man has chiselled him out of this or that ; it's enough to knock patriotism out of a man.

A famous book about the misfortunes of a pauper baby set all Christendom by the ears. The keen perceptive sympathies of the writer marked him a fit man to inspect the condition of the Coolies in British Guiana, and report thereon. What would the world say if the author of "Ginx's Baby" were to set before it the state of the Ontario pioneer Colonists ? Of the uncertainty and suspense of their titles ? Of the miseries o^ Bickness borne scores of miles distant from aid, of the enormous expense of bringing the nece isaries of life to points remote from the centres of supply, of the want of schools and of everything

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like religious inatnictiou or ministration, iu a civilized Christian land ?

What would the world say of the attempts of hundreds of Colonists to make settlements on Crown Lands being baffled by the affidavits of lumbermen that the lands were unfit for settlement? What would it say if it knew the facts of the hundreds of cases remaining undecided by the Crown Lands Department from year to year, of the patents withheld on flimsy pretexts ? What would it say if it knew that in conse- quence of the settler being excluded from competition with the lumberman in the purchase of "limits," hundreds of settlers, having found "no chance to live" in the country, have aban- doned even " free grant locations," and have left Ontario for the Western States ?

O public, advertise as you will, the Statute Book and your Courts, the testimony of the backwoodsman, give your adver- tisements the lie.

CHAPTER IU.

Two suits brought by squaUers for the recovery of hay cut and harvested by them, of which they were, as they thought, wrongfully deprived by holders of timber licenses, are reported in the 20th volume of the Keports of the Court of Common Pleas for this Province. In the suit of McDonald against Turner, it was shown that the piece of land upon which the hay was cut Avas a beaver meadow on lots 8, 9, and 10, 3rd conces- sion of Hagarty, Nipissing District. About ten tons were cut by McDonald, stacked and a rail fence put around it. Turner took away the hay, and successfully resisted any claim for its value on the ground that his timber license gave him the right to exclusive possession of tliese lots, and that McDonald had not shown any title or right to possession. The judge in quoting the law shows that the licensees right is not to inter- fere with any one settling under lawful authority or title, as to whom it is provided "that they shall not in any way be inter-

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rupted m clearing or cultivating by the said licertiate or any one acting for him or by his permission."

In tho case of Graham against Heenan : —

" It appeared tliero was a clearing on certain limits with a barn upon it. A witness proved that lie worked on the clear- ing for 4rraliani in 1867, wlio had stock on it and got the hay crop that year. In 1868 men were also employed by Graham to cut hay ; some six or seven tons were saved and put into the barn. In September, 1868, Graham sent to remove the hay, and was prevented by Ileenan's men, and the hay was kept and used by Ileeiian, who had tlie timber license during the previous year, but had not at this time got it renewed. That Graham liad Ixnight a quantity of cljattels on the farm belong- ing to a former claimant oi* s(j natter for $1,600. That " a dis- cussion or treaty was spoken of in the Spring of 1868 between the said former claimant or squatter and Heenan respecting the purchase of the squatter's interest in the farm, and writings were prepared but never executed, and nothing definite either said or done.'' Tiic Juda-e says : "I can find nothinij in the evi- dence showing the origin of the clearing. All that appears is that Graham in tlie summer of 1867 took a crop of hay off it, and again in 1808 cut the hay in dispute here and put it into the barn spoken of. ISSir can I see distinctly any proof of cultivation by Graham of the land, nor anything to indicate that it was other than the natural marsh or beaver meadow grass. A witness does say it was part timothy and part clover. By the document put in and evidence on Graham's side, the alleged clearing was certainly on Ileenan's limits ; and had any of the licenses proved by Heenan covered the month of September, 186S, I should at once decide against Graham's right to hay made from the natural grass of the limits." The Judge hoM'cver did decide for Heenan on the ground that if he had not the license in September, 1868, he was at least entitled to it. And then the Judge sa^'S : "Graham's case fails : that such should he the result, cannot^ on this evidence, he a nuUter of regret y

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Blackstone (Commentaries, Book 3, p. 212), says: "It liatli been said that by the common law and custom of England the poor are allowed to enter and glean upon another's ground after the harvest without being guilty of trespass, which humane j^rovision seems borrowed from the Mosuical Law." Leviticus 19ch. 9v., and 23 cli. 22 v. Deuteronomy 24 ch. 19 V. His editor Chitty, liowevor, states : "7V)o actions of trespass have been brought in the comrrwu pleas against glean- ers, with an intent to try the general question, viz., whether such a right existed ; in the first, the defendant pleaded that he being a poor, necessitous, and indigent person, entered the plaintiff's close to glean ; in the second, the defendant's plea was as,before, with the addition that he was an inhabitant legally settled within the parish ; to the plea m each case there was a general demurrer. Judge Gould delivered a learned judgment in favour of gleaning, but the other three judges were clearly of opinion that the claim had no foundation in law ; that the only authority to support it was an extrajudicial dictum of Lord Hale ; that it was a practice incompatible with the exclu- sive enjoyment of property, and was productive of vagrancy and many mischievous consequences.

In Graham's case against Heenan it is possible that the facts were not fully brought before the Court, or that there were facts presented which warranted the expression with which the judge closed his judgment. But from the report itself it is fair to assume that Heenan knew that Graham cut the hay in 1867, and that he also knew that Graham removed it or other- wise dealt with it as his own. The report states that there was a discussion or treaty in the following year respecting the pur- chase of the squatter's right, if right he had, to which Heenan was a party. There can be no doubt, therefore, that Heenan knew that a claim was set up to the clearing and its produce. It does not appear that he denied any right to such claim. It does not appear that he gave notice to Graham that if he cut the hay he would lose it. Knowing that Graham had cut the hay in 1867, he ought to have supposed he would cut it in 1868. He

14

tlicreforo peniiitted Graliani to cut it in 1868 an<l to put it in the barn. He then appropriated without compensation, or offer of pay, Graliam'B labor (for the rej)ort in silent as to this, and it may 1)0 aBsumed no offer was made, as it might liavo affected Ileenan's defence.) So far, however warranted by law, the judgment in effect makes a Wrong tlie exercise of a Riglit. It is im])ortant to the squatter in many particulars. It fully and plainly informs him that the severity of English law, wliicli stamps as a vagrant the man who tries to win l>re.id by saving what others are compelled to leave for waste, — that the like severity is sanctioned by the law of Ontario. In the Province of Quebec, "if the Crown have not otherwise disposed of it, the grass upon the beaches of the River St. Lawrence belongs by right of occupancy to him who cuts it ;" also, "a mere possessor acquires the fruits" of the earth " in the case of his possession being in good faith," and the possession ceases to be in good faith "only from the moment that the defeats in his title are made known to him by proceedings at law." An English law- writer was fain to find a legal ground for the poor labor of the gleaner, and called the suipipo^Qd right & humane provmon, and referred its origin to the law of God. If conscience cannot decide for us what was the Right in Graham's case, we may find some agreement at least with our feelings in the law of Quebec bearing upon that Right ; — and in the tender wordi wherewith the great Blackstone would have sanctioned the petty trespass of the poor gleaner wc may animate such feelings against the unkindliness that rings in the judicial sentence — OrahxmCs case fails : that such should he the 7'esulty cannot, on this evidence, be a matter of regret." Foriooth —

" By mo weak pity might the gods be moved."

In McDonald's case there is not the same array of facts ag in that of Graham. The claimant wins our sympathy by the very brevity of the story. The beaver meadow was in the Township of Hagarty, in the very heart of " the forest primeval," many days' journey from Peterboro, where the case was tried. The man cut ten tons of hay and put a rail fence around the stack. His labor, no doubt a week's hard labor, was taken from him

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15

by a man holding a tiinl)er-licen8e over Uie lots where Uiu hay was cut. No doubt, alao, McDonald thought he was deeply wronged, and that he would get full redress in a court of law. The jury gave him a verdict for $100, but the Court gave the leave required to enter a verdict for the limit-holder on the law of the case, and the man lost his hay, his time in seeking pay for it, and two bills of costs into the bargain. After this, if the man had a spark of the hatred of oppression that has distin- guished many of his name he has put broad leagues between him and the region of Ontario timber-limits and the grab game forever.

Ill this case the law is laid down in terms of which all settlers upon land covered by timber-licenies will do well to take heed. A receipt for payment of a part of the purchase money of Crown Land will not enable a purchaser to bring a suit for trespass by wrong-doer. Chief Justice Draper said he would have been glad to decide otherwise, " consistent with the moral justice of the case." Chief Justice Kobinson on the same point, differed somewhat from Chief Justice Draper, lean- ing more to the side of the claimant under the recipt. Looking at these cases, what is the position of the settler who has not his patent ? The iron tyranny that is begot by excluding the settler from competition with the license-holder in the produc- tion of timber, will not stop at the assertion of such claims as those fut forth by Heenan and Turner. It might be thought sufficient to trust to time, to the good sense and human lore of justice among Canadians, for wiser laws and broader freedom ; but it needs no reference to historical books to show that mon- opolists are always exacting, that the tyranny of class-interests is always aggressive. The right of timber licensees to exclusive possession is plainly paramount to that of the settler under purchase from the Crown. The settler is only " not to be in any way internipted in clearing or cultivating." He has not within the strict letter of the law the least right to pasture his cattle beyond his clearing, or to cut beaver meadow hay. Even where the hay in Graham's case was said by a witness to be " part timothy and part clover," the judge said : " Nor can I

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SCO distinctly any proof of cultivation by Graham of the land, nor anytliini< to indicate tiiat it M'as other than the natural niareh or lieaver meadow gra8!i." Plainly, if hay grown on a " clearing," ''part timothy and part clover," cut, raked, win- nowed, put up in cocks, and hauled to a barn, is not a product of various works of cultivation, then the ])usturiDg of cattle is much less a work of cultivation. Although it is not customary to call a ''beaver meadow" a '' clearing," it is quite evident that the (Jourts will not conf(jund the labours ot the pioneer settler with the wonderful works of the animal that adorns the National Escutcheon. The mysterious operations of an animal instinct have wrought the will of Him who

" Causeth the grasa to grow for the cattle, — and herb for the MfTiee of maa : That he maj bring forth food out of the earth,"

To these fertile meads " man goeth fortJi to his work and to his labor until the evening." Anon comes the limit-holder against whom the prophet Isaiah had he lived to see this day, would take up his scroll and say : — " Ye swallow up the yineyard : the spoil of the poor is in jour houses."

And he might liken the limit-holder in his grasping ambition lor lumber territory and his jealousy of all who stand in his way, to the King of Assyria whom God would punish — '

For he saith —

" By the strength of mine hand I have done it,— and by my wisdom : for I am prudent : " And I have removed the bounds of the people,— and have robbed their treasures, - " And I have put down the inhabitants like a vacant man : " And my hand bath found as a nest, the riches of the people : " And as one gathereth j'ggs that are left, have 1 gathered all the earth ; " And there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. " Shall the ax<! boast itself against him that heweth therewith?

" Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, send among his fat ones leanness ;

" And under his glory he shall kindle a burning— like the burning of a fire,

" And the light of Israel shall be for a fire,— and his Holy One for a flame :

" And it ehail bum and devour his thorns—and his briers in one day ;

'■ And shall cuns-ume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field— both soul and body ;

" And they shall be as when a standard bearer fainteth.

" And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few,— that a child may count them.

The historical fact has supplemented the prophetic warning. A child may number the cedars where once was the fcrost of Lebanon. The use of this quotation from the Bible may be excused for the reason of its terrible suggestiveness. The sel- lishneBB of the Few is ever the enemy of the Freedom of the

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Many ; hut wlieii tliu Lord rcbukos selfishness, it is with His Ked Ri^'ht Iliuid.

It 1ms boon stat(;d tliat the timber licensees pay no taxes. En many cases three-fourths ot'the township area is "limited" and exempt from taxation. There are townshij)8 whose municipal existence dates twenty years back, wherein thirty to forty square miles of "limited" land yield no taxes. A comparison of the Census of 1871 with that of I860 will show that in such townships the population has decreased.

Years a«^o the position of the squatter was more tolerable than now. The increasing value of timber has directed legis- lation in the abridi^ement of his privileges. The rights of the settler have also been abridged. The issue of tlie jjatont for h - land is delayed for a longer period than formerly, to enable the lumberman to stri]> the lot of its tiud)or. At the rate of legislative advance in the protection of the lumberman, there has been u corresponding retrograde movement towards diminishing the rights of the settler.

Before 1870 all tindjer on road alllowances was vested in the township nmnicipalities. The sale of this timber would go far to pay the cost of building roads.

In 1870 an action was brought by the Corporation of the Townshii) of Barrie against Gillies ct McLaren, lumbermen, lor the value of a large (piantity of tindjer trees cut on the allowances marked out for roads on the plan of the township. The Township of Barrie was surveyed in 1856. It is situated about seventy miles north of the Bav of Quinte. The Adding- ton Colonization ro-id, which leads from a ))oint north of Napanee to the Madawaska River, runs along the western bouudiu-y of the township. By the otter of free grant lands and other indications of a liberal [)olicy to settlers, many were induced to settle in this remote region. The Township is so much cut up by lakes that it was necessary to lay out roads around the lake shores in addition to the customarv concession and side lines.

The Township passed a by-law for the protection of the

timber on these road allowances, and after its passage and with 3

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notice of it, Gillies & McLaren cut 2,770 trees on the road allowances, of the value of $2,297. They refused to pay the Corporation for the timber, and an action was brought for its recovery.

The Court decided in favour of the Corporation.

The judgment had hardly been ij;ivcn when "an Act relative to Government road allowances and the granting of Crown timber licenses therefor" was introduced to the legislature. It was brought in hastily, a few days belbre the close of the ses- sion, and passed hastily, without remark. The legislature had been occupied with the discussion of a scheme for the division of the surplus funds of the Province among the Municipalities, and members may be fairiy supposed to have overlooked the loss this Act would work for the i)oor backwoods townships, in prospect of the large gains to be won for more popu- lous communities by a division of tlie surplus. The act is retrospective and prospective. It sweeps away all right to timber on road allowances which the Court, in its judgment against Gillies & McLai'en, declared had vested in the Muni- cipalities, It enacts that all Government road allowances "heretofore granted or which may hereafter be granted, shall be deemed and taken to be and to have been uni^ranted lands of the Crown."

The authority of municipal councils to deal with municipal property is destroyed, and the control of the revenue which might be derived from the sale of the timber on road allow- ances is taken away. Upon compliance with certain require- ments, a municipality is to be paid two per cent of the dues received by Her Majesty in respect of the timber and saw-logs cut in the township. Until the repeal of the law it behooves all township municipalities in which there is any timber on the road allowances to [»ass by-laws for its ])rotection.

The Act was infauiously suggested. The Commissioner of Crown Lands had been, it is said, counsel in the suit. There are not wanting instances where lawyers have taken briefs as party advocates, but i:i matters between the Crown and people the long-robed profession has been the most distinguished of all

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in the defence of popular liberties. Tlic law as it stood gave to the townships the right to sell the timber to whom they would. The law as it is now revests that right in the Crown that it may be exercised for the benefit of grasping monopolists. The instructions of a brief, it might be supposed, would in this country have never been brought into the Legislature by a Minister of the Crown. Alas! there is no bound to the ener- gies of a spirit prompted by caprice or prejudice. Let us hope, however, that the Provincial Assembly is not lost to shame and virtue, and that there is a limit beyond which it will not go in the prostitution of its functions.

CHAPTER IV.

If youVe any friends, customers, relatives, connexions of any sort, in the lumberin' line, you needn't swear. It's no argu- ment I tell you. I'll give you a variety of cases where God and Justice have had no hand in the hard lines you've set around the bush-whackers.

Here's a lot of people, mostly in the rear of what you might call old townships, settled on rough land. You've built no " Colonization Roads" for thein. Tliey've done that work in a rude wav at their own cost. Twenty vears ajjo — ten years ago — when a man bought land and settled and got his patent, he got all the timber. If lie paid by instalments even, the lumbermen were not then so gi-eedy, and he generally made the timber pay for tlie land. If he'd a lot of boys or a little money saved, he was lucky, make qu'':;k work with his payments and got his deed. But if he hadn't the money saved, or the boys didn't get to l)e some help before Stei)hen Richards got into the Crown Lands, why, — he lost his timber. Ko matter how big his clearing or what his improvements, he hadn't paid up for his land. Even if he got scared and paid up somehow, he couldn't get his patent for three yeui"*, and tlie limit-holder, knowing his lictense would ^'>un run o'lt, came and cleared off the timber needed for barns and fences I can name a town- ship where the lumberers too '< every stick of cedar from the

a»7fiB-TTl.*.lf|Br- ■■...^ -U.

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settlers — left scarce a rail cut in the wliole township. Here's these hundreds of people who owe a big pile to the Crown Lands. Most of it 's back rents on Clergy land and interest. You've sold millions of acres to speculating companies for ten cents an acre— fifty cents an acre. You've given away, or tried to give away tens of thousands of acres free gratis. You're grinding these liundreds of actual settlers on one side of the house, and on the other you're advertising and blowing away with all the power of the Agriculture Department that you give land for nothing, and that there is no country in the world where a man has such a Chance as in Ontario.

It's a big Lie, I tell you. A man has no Chance at all here. Up west he's got no stones to bother him ; no clearing, logging, burning to do ; no stumps to break his tackle or his plough. He can set to work at once on a farm ; he hasn't to make one ; and if has bad luck two years hand-runnin' it's no worse than it is here, and the third year he has a crop that makes up for it all. If he gets into a woody country and buys, he owns whatever timber's on the land. It's his and he lias no dues to pay. He's got some Chance to get along. In Canada his only Chance is in the timber, and that's taken from him, and he can't buy it if he wants to. The big men that rule the country can get whole townships for themselves and their friends, but a poor man has no right to buy the timber on his own lot and make something out of it to pay for the feed of his team over winter. If he cuts marsh hay on a wild Crown Land lot, the man who owns a limit takes his labor and the stuff that any man that calls himself a man would 'most give for the cuttin'. What would they think in the States of limitin' the hay on a prairie ? If you settle here on a pretty good lot there's a big block near you limited. It may be rough, but there's generally enough good land on every two hundred acres to encourage a man to settle if he wasn't coaxed off fifty miles further by the reports of good land in the Free Grants. And so he moves on. You and your few neighbours pay all the taxes for building roads. The " limited" land pays none. You've no hope of the town- ship ever coming to anything. The Government scatters tlie

21

few emigrants that do settle all over the country, buries them here and there in the wilderness for the Innibernien to pick their l)one5 cheap. Nol)ody'll ever hear of them. If they got enough rough land to make up a farm, and an even chance with the lumbermen to take the pine otf by paying Crown dues, and if the Government wouldn't open up any more tracts until there was something like settiements that could help to build roads and keep up schools and get churches in these townships, a man would have some Chance to live. But 1 tell you ifs a Fighi. Fighting fire out of your cUarivu for weeks together, figlitin^ for your Rights you dorCt get, wm'hirC the vei^y life out of yourself for a Chance to live, and you don't get a Chance after all !

In the name of God, O Public, give the man a Chance to live, lie's the Peer of the best among you, and he doesn't ask any more of you than a Chance to get the better of Hard Times.

CHAPTER V.

" But when T reached one dying autumn tide My uncle's dwelling near the forest side, And saw the land ho scanty and so bare, And all the hard things men contend with there, A little and unworthy land it seemed,"

Over a large part of Ontario the economics of farm life are yearly becoming more complex. Given a soil of virgin fertility and a market for its fruits, the lot ot the cultivator is the most blest under Heaven. But when incessant cropping without manure exhausts the soil ; when the markets team with the produce from cheaper and more fertile lands brought into com- petition with produce of land that has become unfertile through wasteful cultivation and costly through the growth of popula- tion, the lot of the cultivator of worn-out land becomes irksome. Tlie simplicity of the life of the pioneer colonist has given place to one of costly expense ; emulation of extravagance has brought its burden of debt ; and although there are not want- ing instances of successful agriculture upon worn-out land, it has come to this in Ontario that really one-third of the freeholds in old settlements are mortgaged for one-third of their value.

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Depopulation has in many jjarts set in. One would suppose that where the necessity for more careful cultivation is indicated there would be a division of holdings, and that this cause, oper- ating with the abolition of primogeniture, would lead to the extensive creation of small farms. It is not so, however. The holder of a small farm is ambitious to rival his wealthier neighbor in income and expenditure. He sells his little farm, — the savings (»f yeai's, — and betakes himself to some part of the Province where he can get a large farm, or, what is more frequently the case, he goes to the Western States.

It is folly to deny that this is the case. The growth of this Province in population and wealth does not disprove the fact, — which can be attested by every man having a moderate acquaintance with people in the rural districts, that there is a not inconsiderable emigration westv/ard everv year from the old*toM'nships, (;hiefly of small farmers, and of younger sons who, rather than accept a fraction ot the paternal acres, choose to carve out for themselves a home and independence elsewhere.

It is not with this fact, which we are powerless to check, but with its consequence that we have to deal. There is yearly growing upon us, with larger farms, a want of hands to till them. Machinery is supplying the want in some degree, but if we be led thereby to believe that we can do without the farm laborer, the result in the end will be disastrous. We shall be crying out for help, when there will be none to help us. The labor now re(|uired in the old townships is skilled farm labor, and this is now the most difficult to procure. Difficult as it is now, it is yearly becoming more so.

Visit any section ten miles sc^uare in the north of England or south of Scotland, and th*' laborers will be found better housed than the farmers in tlie new townships of Ontario, as well housed as numy in the old. Good ploughmen in the same district get wages in money and in kind equal to the average wages paid in tliis Province. It is not to the poor house, or to the districts where farms are small, that we must go for the skilled agricultural laborers which Britain can spare.

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In the year '68, if I remember, tlie Reeve of the township of — sent to the Emigration Agent at , a statement that

tifty farm hiborers could readily find employment in that town- ship, " men with families preferred." The Agent was zealous, confident in the belief that '' homes for all" could be found in Ontario. On the arrival of a large number of immigrants, committed to him by the Emigrati<»n Department for distri- bution in his agency, he made careful selection of a number of unmarried men and married men with families whom he des- patched to . On their arrival, of which timely notice had

been ^riven, some of the enterprising farmers in the neighbor- hood assembled at the ** hiring," and bid for the " sturdy labor- ers" six to eight dollars a month with board. What was to be done with their families 'i They might live in rented rooms in the village, if any could be found. There was not one labor- er's cottage in the neighborhood. A few of the unmarried men yielded to the ])ressure of " hard times." and hired. The mar- ried men wisely ke})t what money they had, and appealed to the charity of the Reeve of the village for support. After being fed for a day or two, no " homes for the homeless" appeared, and the married men left the place, not caring to trust their wives and little ones to starve or beg for one month while they earned for them a scanty subsistence through the next. The Reeve applied to the Emigration Agent for payment for the scanty bounty of the village to the immigrants.

Having a somewhat accurate knowledge of the wealth and resources of five townships which contain about eighteen hundred cultivated farms, the writer believes he is correct in his estimate that there are not more than thirty-six houses in this district inhal)ited by hired farm-laborers with their families. Two of these townships were settled sixty years ago. In two of them twenty thousand acres were held under timber license until within a few years ago, and the partial settlement of more remote townships encouraged. In one the township survey was incorrect, and was sutl'ered to remain so for tliirty years. In the rear of these five are two townships, i>artially settled, and in which an area of eighty scpiare miles, or 50,000 acres, are withheld from settlement under timber license.

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The front five townsnips would aftbrd employment at various seasons of the year to live hundred laborers. The two rear townsliips would aftbrd thein homes. It is the poliey of the Crown Lands Department to scatter pioneer colonists over an immense area in the hope, i)erhap8, that eacli settlement will form the nucleus, 8<» to speak, around which will gather a large population. The hope has not been realized in the case of some settlements on the Colonization Roads ; but, if it were otherwise, not even the plea that the most fertile laud should be first selected for settlement should influence the location of settlements at points so remote from each other that there can be no substantial unity of eftbrt in those two great public bur- thens of the Colonist, the construction of roads and the support of schools. At one hundred miles distance from market, the farmer has only the lumberman to look to for a purchaser of his produce. At forty miles distance he has the double benefit — of a market within one day's travel or a market at his door with the 'umbermen. If within a day's travel of an old farm- ing district, he has there an opportunity to earn good wages in spring, summer, and autumn, and at intervals to follow the clearing of his own farm. If settled on a timber lot he would, under a wise system, have an opportunity to earn a living on his own land during the winter.

View it how one may, there are but two ways open to make immigration meet in any^way the demand for agricultural labor yearly growing upon us In the peninsula and elsewhere in old townships farmers must build, at no inconsiderable expense, laborers' cottages, and set apart garden plots. In the neigh- borhood of towns the fuel consumed by a cottager's family during the winter and the suspension of all farm work where there is no chopping to be aone, will make the charge of keep- ing married laborers on the farm very heavy. The only other way open, is to encourage by all possible means the settlement of every Crown Land lot in those townships which as yet con- tain but (»ne-half of the population they are by nature fitted to support. Irelaud pours forth from her small farms thousands of laborers to English and Scottish harvest fields. The writer

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recollects that some eighteen or twenty years ago a number of poor Canadian farmers left ther own small fields to help getting in the " groaning" wheat liarvest of the Genesee Valley. He knows two of the number who would during last harvest have gladly paid the wages they earned in Genesee County for help to harvest the produce of their now extensive farms.

It is said that a gallant Glengarry man, remarkable for his blunt speeches, being asked, on his return from a visit to the cradle of his ancestors, what he "thought of it," replied, "the confounded country wasn't worth the taxes." Some such opinion prevails respecting a large part of Ontario. It has been created in no small degree by lumbermen, jealous of any encroachment on their preserves ; disseminated by persons ignorant of the capabilities of the Lauren ti an country to sustain an immense cattle-and-sheep-grazing interest, and in some degree it has been justified by the blundering policy of scatter- ing settlements over it at points so remote from each other that poverty and wretchedness seem to be the inevitable destiny of the people who inhabit them. As a rule only the poorest will seek land so generally thought poor that tliere is no competition for it. Kespecting this country, a Government Emigrants' Guide-Book says :

"A grand old formation is the Laurentian, its mountains nowhere peaked but rounded by the weather during countless ages, and the hills along the spur just spoken of washed till they are bare, so that only near the thousands of lakes and lakelets which nestle among them and along the beds of tur- bulent little streams which connect these lakes, can any fertile lands be found."

The best contradiction to the statement of the Government

scribe is the testimony of Sir Wm. Logan, Director of the

Canadian Geological Survey. At page 5, of the General

Report published in 1865, he gives the heights above sea level

of some prominent points in the Laurentide Range in Canada,

and remarks :

4

" As the various heights mentioned belong to points more prominent than the country surrounding them, it may not be giving too low an estimate of the general elevation of the Laurentide Kange in Canada to call it from 1,600 to 1,600 feet. The surface which the range presents is of a mammillated char- acter, its hills being worn hy glacial action into round-backed forms, in general thickly clothed with wood, the prevailing trees on the summits being evergreens, in some parts chiefly pine, and in others spruce, while hardwood sometimes abounds on the lower elevations and in the valleys."

There is a notable contrast between the weather-worn hills washed bare, of the timber-ridden scribe of the Emigration Department, and the truthfully scientific description of Sir William Logan.

Let me give you a concise history of a township on the Laurentian formation. Its centre^is thirty miles from market. It was granted, saving a few lots, to U. E. Loyalists before 1820. It was all sold, savmg a few lots, for taxes in 1831, and again in 1843. It is plain the U. E. Loyalists thought as little of it as the Glengarry politician did of his ancestral home in the Scottish Highlands. A large Irish emigration had poured into the township before 1851, and at the taking of the census in that year it contained 410 occupiers of land, or heads of families, who had under cultivation 7,691 acres, or 19 acres to every family. The number of acres " held," — a euphuism admissible where it could hardly be said of these squatters that they " owned" the land, — was 45,17*. In 1867 the number of occupiers of land was 822, and the numbers of acres assessed, 73,227. A large quantity of this land was bought on easy terms from the speculators who purchased at the tax sales, and of so little value was it deemed that I think I may safely haz- ard the assertion that not one of these titles has ever been impeached. This township, it will be observed, contains twenty per cent above the average number of rate-payers in any township in Ontario. I once heard a member of the Pro- vincial Assembly berate the condition of the settlers in this

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township in terms expressive of contempt for their p^ v^erty. I believe the most prosperous township in western Ontario can- not show a record as glorious as that of the famine-stricken Irish who by squatting, buying imperfect titles or otherwise, made this rocky township one of the most populous, and, I believe, one in which the freeholds are the least encumbered by mort' gages of any in the Province.

It is not convenient to provoke the personal ardor of local criticism which always assails him who freely attacks deep- seated local prejudices. Having no special antipathy to any particular lumberman, municipal council, or other functionary or person, I omit such mention of places as might localize my attack. But being careful that my facts shall not lie, I turn to page 12 of the Census Report for 1851 and select a township on the Laurentian formation with fifty occupiers of land, hav- ing under cultivation about fourteen acres each, holding alto- getlier about 6,000 acres. I know that in this township one ex-member of the Provincial Assembly owns 10,000 acres ; an- other, I believe, about 2,000 acres. I kn ow that there are 25 square miles under timber license. The township covers an area of about 60,000 acres. In 1867 it appears to assess about 32,000 acres and 190 ratepayers. Its centre is about thirty miles from a larger and better market than the township whose history has been sketched in the preceding paragraph. It has a better ooil. It has, however, scarcely one-fourth of the popu- lation and not one-half of the quantity of tax-yielding land, and not one-fifth of the assessed wealth. The reason is : that town- ship by virtue of its early grant to U. E. Loyalists was exempt from the operation of timber licenses ; this township by the operation of timber licenses has excluded settlement. "What will be the relative results ten years hence? That township will have fully as much wood land as this, and treble its popu- lation and wealth. I tliink it is fair to assume that all this is due to the blundering policy of the Crown Lands Department. I may be told that while settlement was being concentrated upon the poor lands of the former township, the latter had to

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permit the tide of emigration to pass over it to townships in its rear. I turn to figures opposite the three townships continu- ously in its roar, and find that the total rate-paying population of the four townships is little more than one-half, and the assessed real and personal property not two-fifths of the value of that held in the township mentioned in the preceding para- graph, and this in the very teeth of the appropriation of free grant lots in three out of the four townships I have compared with that, in the settlement of which the Crown Lands' Depart- ment had neither part nor lot.

It cannot be gainsayed that to make the most of what the Almighty has given us, the " Laurentian formation" must be settled. Sir William Logan estimates lU area in Upper and Lower Canada at 200,000 8(iuare miles. To publish it as unfit for settlement is to decry the country altogether. But what else could be looked for from the functionaries appointed by a body of representatives who have not among them one farmer to represent the interests of upwards of one hundred townships in the forest of Ontario one half of which are on the "grand old Laurentian formation."

CHAPTER VI. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

" A pretty story, certainly," say we on perusal of this bump- tious little pamphlet. Where there is so much poetical quotation, there must of necessity be a good deal of fiction. Where the Hebrew Prophets are made to do service touching '' fires in the woods," there must be smoke. And where a Carlylian paragraph with capital letters furnishes the preface there must be "rot." Upon the subject of a stupid blunder about arrears of taxes, a decision or two of the Court of Common Pleas upon the rights of lumbermen to wild hay found on their limits, and an improbable story of the treatment received by some married

emigrants with their families at the village of , the writer

gets up a yelp which he lugubriously entitles " Hard Times in

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Ontario." Totichitig the matter bo more need be said ; anent the manner, what other than it is drivelling ? — The Diurnal Ihte and Ci'y.

" We qnt>te with hearty approral the well-pointed, pithy and pungent criticism of our great diurnal contemporary, " Hue and Cry." — Highport Constitutional.

"It needs but a casual investigation of the figures of the late census to determine beyond cavil the proper locality to which to assign this pretentious claimant for public attention. The seat of the scorner is by privilege given to the fool whose rash- ness leads him to grapple with questions he has not the capacity to apprehend, nor the ingenuity so to bedeck with sophistry that the worse shall appear the better reason. Inflamed by the puling nursery twaddle of ' Ginx's Baby,' this pamphleteer would have us believe that the pioneer colonist is not far removed in condition from the interesting pauper bantling whose miseries have given their author — Jenkins — an ephem- eral notoriety. But the good sense of the people of Ontario is not to be hoodwinked by sham ; nor can an effort to do the sensational for a man such as the pioneer colonist, — inlinitely beyond this creature in sturdy activity and heroic independence, — enlist a single appreciative response in the breasts of the backwoodsmen of Ontario. It is well that the pamphlet comes before us in an anonymous shape, else we might have singled out for criticism some poverty-stricken lawyer whose stomach is more likely to be acquainted with slapjacks and rye bread than that of any the poorest bushwhacker in the Province. This class will not thank the would-be advocate of their inter- ests for a snp^i at fat pork, or the imperfect cookery of each man's ' old 'ooman." We commit him to the contempt of the class he has in vain essayed to serve. — OJdtoion Independent.

" Having at length refuted the astounding change of tyranny preferred against the limitholdere, we think it hardly necessary to ask : Can the timber on the public lands be sold by the Crown ? Can the terms of the contract be made such as to protect the Crown against fraud and secure to the purchaser

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the just raeafiurc of his purchase? Is a judge, in the interpre- tation of what ifi the law, not exempt from pergonal criticigm on the tone of his judgment. la the legishiture v)f a free peo])lo to be cooWy r^harged with the proatitutimi of its lunctions and caustically rc<juested to proceed no further in its degradation I Opposed as we have been to the late Minirttrv in every ])ar- ticular of its corrupt administration of affairs, wo cannot but believe that the New will give attention to the settlement of the interior and evince due earnestness in securing to the country a fair proportion of the tide of emigration. Criticism in advance of its policy is uncalled for, unprovoked and idle. In Mr. Scott the administrationjof the lands and timber domain of the Crown will have an able chief, holding those Conser- vative views which will make these sources of revenue meet their proper share of the public burden. In Mr. Mackenzie we have a 'man of the ])eople,' wise in Council, but when popular liberty is assailed, an impassioned orator. Need we say that all who desire what is equitable for every class and all classes, may with safety look to the astuteness, the oratorical power and brilliant abilities of Mr. Edward Blake. The settlers whose lands are but partially paid for, the adventurous back- woodsmen who carry our nationality into the interior, need have no cause for apprehension. Their interests are in hands wisely guided by experience and due regard for the interests of the whole Province. — Maednog Sun- Dial.

" It will be News to many that the title which the Crown offers to the settler on free grant locations on fulfilment of settlement duties or upon payment for his land, is insecure. It will be likewise News that the distribution of local taxation in townships should be supervised by a court. It will surprise many that a simpler blunder in charging arrears of taxes where plainly no such charge could have been made, could work any man, not witless, any serious injury. To argue anything from 60 novel a case is futile. It called for no other redress than its mere mention to any intelligent municipal council. If there be councils not intelligent the fault or nai^fortune cannot b^

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charged to any defect in our excellent municipal institutions. Nothing can be gained by an attack upon the integrity and intelligence of so large a body of men as that composing the great municipal administration. The role of the Cynic is one no man can till with any benefit to himself or the cause he espouses. The writer evidently mistakes his mission. It is he who patronizes the ululating spirit of a witless bushwhacker, no more a true specimen of his class than a hawk is like a handsaw. The pioneers of Ontario are hardheaded as well as hfirdhandcd, and their thrift, good sense and general prosperity furnish materiel — facts that do not lie — in direct denial of the flimsy tissue of nonsense, sophistry and rant that fill the pages of this pamphlet." — Floridy Sawloggist.

CHAPTER Vn. IT'ST-SORII'T.

Gentlemen — I thank you for your courtesy. It is quite a pardonable offence to abuse the advocate of that cause of which you either know nothing, or, knowing anything, have the pru- dence not to impugn. You are also justified by the critical maxim :

" Its proper power to hurt each creature feels— Bulls aim their horcR and asses lift their heels.

Omit some powers given to municipal corporations which unwarrantably abrogate private rights, and our municipal institutions are excellent. I cannot find fault with the want of knowledge or temper in the men who manage them. More caretulness and less conceit would make such men, honoured by the public suffrages, more honorable still. But when care- lessness works private wrong it would be criminal to defend it.

It is a great evil that there is any land in the country for which the owners will not pay rates. After five years non- payment of rates such lard should be forfeited to the Crown, to be sold in trust for the public. Every man, especially every holder of property, should meet promptly his due to the general burden of taxation. The right to hold and occupy land exclu-

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sWely ib a creation of the State. It should never be created, nor should its enjoyment ever be allowed in any way to inter- fere with the general benefit. The notion that land is property in the same sense that money is property, is a convenient fiction, at other times a foolish and injurious one. It is con- venient for the purpose of assuring to the man who improves, by cultivation or other use, the exclusive enjoyment of his labor ; but it is an injurious fiction when the possessor is allowed to keep the land idle, to hold it until surrounding improvement in which he labors not has made it valuable ; above all, to hold it while withholding the proper quota of taxation.

Of the millions of acres in Ontario, granted to U. E. Loyalists on conditions of settlement, the conditions were never fulfilled over an immense area. Speaking roundly, for no return has ever been made concerning the matter, upon a million of acres or more the grantees paid no taxes, and tliese lands were sold. They became valuable under the hands of improving purchasers. Suit after suit was brought to set aside the sales. Frauds, blunders of officialb, legal quibbles, and blunders even in the law itself, bid fair to disturb the titles and possessions of thousands. A remedial act was passed. The titles are con- firmed or the possessions under them placed on an equitable footing, but the frauds, blunders and legal quibbles continue to ariee, — thus for instance :

Brown, Jones and Robinson go fifty miles into the woods, select locations, fell trees, build shanties, make clearings, bring in their wives and little ones. They have hardly cleared an acre for each when the rumor comes that fifty miles farther in the interior better land is to be found. They inspect and verity, abandon their locations, and move to the new land of promise.

But the township assessor visited them before their departure and rated them for their land. When the collector comes he finds no rate-pay el's and returns the land as "non-resident." The assessor the following year uses his predecessor's book, assesses the unoccupied land, and the collector again retnrns the land in arrear for taxes. And this blunder is repeated from year to year.

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Another band of settlers appear, and enter upon the aban- doned locations. Tliey remain and buy the land. The assessor sometimes gives notice of back-taxes due, sometimes not. The settlers expect a clear deed from the Crown. Eventually their land is oftered for sale for taxes. By petition to the township council, running to and fro, seeking favor with the Heeve, seeking advice in this quarter, influence in that, the blunder may be correctted. It may not.

We have a Statute in the Ontario Statute Books which enacts that a purchaser of unpatented lands sold for taxes acquires no greater or other right against the Crown than the original purchaser or locatee. It is questionable if there was any necessity for such a Statute. It is a pretty piece of legis- lation, however, — evidence of zeal in the interest of Her Majesty's Crown and Dignity. At tax sales no informatio!i is given of what the original purchaser or locatee's interest is. You draw a prize or a blank in the land lottery. You may be entitled to a patent from the Crown, which the purchaser per- haps failed to get. You may lind that the locatee's interest is buried beyond redemption in an accumulation of arrears of princi]>al and interest.

In the business of settling the country between the Ottawa and Lake Huron tliere is a task before us very different from any hitherto ui^dei'taken. A fertile soil and a great stretch of navigablf- \vater rapidly developed the settlement of our shores of the St. Lr.wrence, Lakes Ontario and Erie, the Detroit Kiver, and the southerly reaches of Lake Huron. After tliese influ- ences^ came those of the railways of the Peninsula, running through a very fertile territory. The condition of the money- less colonist of late yearb has everywhere been favorable. Employment at all seasons of the year, a market for everything that the soil produces, the neighborhood of schools and place* of worship, have made his lof posperous. It is true that m^ir\ prospered ir tht earlv liie>torv of the countrv when manv of these favoring conditioiis wove unknown. We attempt now, however, to do by a leap what the early settlers did tentatively.

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The area thrown open to settlement within the last twenty years is nearly as large as that whieh had been from time to time thrown open in the preceding fifty years. Had the demand for land in the latter area ceased or nearly so, a policy of extension would have been imperatively required. But so far from the demand having ceased, what is the case? Scores of townships, surveyed and offered fur sale thirty years ago and uj>M-ards, are little more than half settled. Their further progress is a thing impossible so long as a score of new town- ships are l)i'onght into the market every year, and emigration to these encouraged. It will not do to let this matter " govern itself.-' It is indisput:w)le that the farmers of the 1)roken soils in the rear of many townships between Ottawa City and Peter- boro are in more prosperous circumstances than those settled on any of tlie free-grant lands.

If instead of giving land away, instead of selling vast tracts to a speculating land company, the Crown had put all land in the pai'tially settled townships into the market at twenty-fi^'e cents an acre and upon conditions of actual settlement, the face of a hirge part of the country would wear a different appoarance to-day. The settlement of the interior would not have been one whit retarded. Pioneer settlers would now be passing into the forest, not iu scattered communities, but as a mass, rapidl}' developing new tracts connected with the old settle- ments by good roads, and by business connection with estab- lished markets and centres of industry.

Much is hoped for the interior from the construction of rail- ways. It M-ould be futile to deny their influence in promoting settlement, but such iniluenco as they may exert will be limited by the character of the country. If the united influences of the presence of water communication and the Grand Trunk Railway have not operated to extend settlement from the shore of the St. Lawrence to a point more than thirty miles inland, what have we to hope from the construction of rail wums through a country wonderfully broken by hills, and lakes, nui itrjiuwig- able rivers. The lumber trade no doubt requires facilities for

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transportation of the leading Canadian product. The railAvay will promote settlement, but how far? If in a level eountrv its influence extends on either side not more than thirty miles, «>r one day's journey of a loaded team, — what will be the extent of its influence where wagon-roads cannot be built for less than fifty per cent in advance of their cost in a level country.

Roads, schools, churches, — without these no agricultural settlement can prosper. The first is of prime importance. Give that, and tiie last will follow. If in well settled town- ships it be a M'ork requiring the energies of a large community to keep the coL/ession roads and '"forty foots" in anytliing like passable condition, what must be the condition of solitary settlements too poor to construct ways to market or mill, and doomed to imprisonment for seven months in the year until tite first tall of snow liberates them.

The matter of Colonization must go hand in hand witli efforts to promote the immigration of agricultural laborers. In old and wealthy communitiesof farmers, the task of kecj^ing agricultural laborers when they come here must l)e left to the farmers themselves. The equalizing processes at M'ork in the distribution of land and wealth in Ontario are yearly de])riving wealthy farmers of such resource for help as they had hitherto in poor neighbors. In the immense competition for lal)or the farmer must rival his competitors, or he will find the influx 01 immigrants can afford but temporary aid. Long hours, low wages, want of laborer's cottages, yearly deprive us of immense numbers of much needed ploughmen, ditchers, builders of dry stone-walls, and other skilled workmen, mucli wanted in old settlements. These are matters which farmers must deal with. But the Government can do much to facilitate tlie settlement of farm laborers in an immense tract of country where they are needed, by giving attenMon to their location on unsettled lands in old or partially settled townships.

For the settlement of remote townships of an unusually broken character special eflforts must be made. To expect laborers from England, Ireland or Scotland, accustomed to

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work on tilled land, or in reclaiuiing bog or moor, to convert stony or rugged tracts into farming country is absurd. Of all men Norwegians are tlie best fitted for becoming Colonists over a very considerable part of Ontario. Their native land is like to ours in almost every feature. Hardy, frugal and industrious, their like is not to be found on the eartii for capacity as woodmen and tillers of a broken country.

To plant the Standard of the Maple Leaf, foot by foot, in the fastnesses of the forest, to encourage the spread of that e(iuality of conditions which hitherto has wrought above all other influ- ences our prosperity, — let us devise liberal things in the certainty that by them we shall stand. To no task can high aims or keen intelligence be so profitably directed as in connecting by su .e links the interests of the country to be settled with thn.t alreadv the abodes of civilized men. The railroad will do much, but beyond the influence of railways in power is that now established in the open farming lands — the reign of law and order, the spirit of enterprise, the love of agricultural pur- suits, the activities of agricidtural life and the spread of know- ledge. These can exert influences immeasurably beyond those i)f railway entei'prises if allowed to operate throughout the vast country lying between us and the almost inaccessible tracts ap]iro)>riated for free grants.

Wi-apt now in virgin snow, with a sheen upon it like that ot the City which John saw : a sky blue, so blue, above ; and •thou —

'' 0 ^ther, cnringing All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing"

what a pity it is tliat a bliijbdering and short-sighted policy should mar the lot of any man in a land so beautiful and blest. What a pity it is that any man should have reason to say, by the folly of the Rulers, by the ignorance of officials, and through the indifference of the People to my condition, I an\ condemned all my life to Hard Times.

FINIS.