Canada and its provinces : a history of the Canadian people and their institutions Volume 17

ST. JOHN FISHER COLLEGE LIBRARY

.Archives Edition

CANADA AND ITS PROVINCES

IN TWENTY-TWO VOLUMES AND INDEX

(Vols. i and 2)
SECTION I

NEW FRANCE, 1534-1760

(Vols. 3 and 4)

SECTION II
BRITISH DOMINION, 1760-1840

(Vol. 5)

SECTION III

UNITED CANADA, 1840-1867
(Vols. 6, 7, and 8)

SECTION IV

THE DOMINION:

POLITICAL EVOLUTION

(Vols. 9 and 10)

SECTION V

THE DOMINION:
INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION

(Vols. ii and 12)

SECTION VI

THE DOMINION :
MISSIONS; ARTS AND
LETTERS

(Vols. 13 and 14)

SECTION VII

THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES
(Vols. 15 and 16)

SECTION VIII

THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC
(Vols. 17 and 18)

SECTION IX

THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO
(Vols. 19 and 20)

SECTION X

THE PRAIRIE PROVINCES

(Vols. 21 and 22)

SECTION XI

THE PACIFIC PROVINCE

(Vol. 23)

SECTION XII

DOCUMENTARY NOTES
GENERAL INDEX

GENERAL EDITORS

ADAM SHORTT
ARTHUR G, DOUGHTY

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

THOMAS CHAPAIS
F. P. WALTON
WILLIAM L. GRANT
JAMES BONAR
D. M. DUNCAN

ALFRED D. DECELLES
GEORGE M. WRONG
ANDREW MACPHAIL
A. H. U. COLQUHOUN
ROBERT KILPATRICK

THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS

VOL. 17
SECTION IX

THE PROVINCE
OF ONTARIO

PART I

CANADA

AND ITS PROVINCES

A HISTORY OF THE CANADIAN

PEOPLE AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS

BY ONE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES

ADAM SHORTT
ARTHUR G. DOUGHTY

GENERAL EDITORS
VOLUME XVII

F

38

51

N/01'll

PRINTED BY T. & A. CONSTABLE

AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS

FOR THE PUBLISHERS' ASSOCIATION

OF CANADA LIMITED

TORONTO

GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY
1914

ST, lOtiM HSHER COLLEGE LIBRARY

Copyright in all countries subscribing to
the Berne Convention

CONTENTS

ONTARIO IN THE DOMINION : GENERAL OUTLINES. By

A. H. U. COLQUHOUN ...... 3

PIONEER SETTLEMENTS. By A. C. CASSELMAN

INTRODUCTORY ....... 13

THE LOYALISTS . . . . . . -15

THE NIAGARA SETTLEMENT . . . . . .I/

SETTLING OF THE LOYALISTS . . . . .21

LOYALIST LOSSES CLAIMS ...... 2/

GRANTS TO LOYALISTS ...... 28

INDIAN IMMIGRATION ...... 42

IMMIGRATION IN THE EARLY YEARS OF UPPER CANADA. . 43

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS OR QUAKERS . 46

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE MENNONITES AND TUNKERS . . 47

THE MARKHAM SETTLEMENT . . . . 50 v

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE EMIGRES . . . .51

THE TALBOT SETTLEMENT ...... 58

THE GLENGARRY SETTLEMENT ..... 65

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWNSHIP OF DUMFRIES . . 69

THE SELKIRK SETTLEMENT . . . . . ?I

IMMIGRATION AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS . 72

THE MILITARY SETTLEMENTS ..... 75

THE LANARK SETTLEMENT ...... 77

THE PETERBOROUGH SETTLEMENT ..... 78

THE IMMIGRATION OF 1825 . ... 84

THE GUELPH SETTLEMENT . . . . . .88

THE MACNAB SETTLEMENT ...... 92

THE HALIBURTON SETTLEMENT ..... 98

viii THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO

PAGE

POLITICAL HISTORY, 1867-1912. By W. S. WALLACE

I. THE PATENT COMBINATION . . 103

II. THE BLAKE ADMINISTRATION . . .128

III. THE BEGINNING OF THE MO WAT REGIME . . 136

IV. MOW AT AND CAMERON : EDUCATION AND THE LICENCE

SYSTEM ... .146

V. MOW AT AND MEREDITH: PROVINCIAL RIGHTS . J 55

VI. MOWAT AND MEREDITH : THE CATHOLIC VOTE . . 164
VII. MOWAT AND MARTER : PROHIBITION . . . .174

VIII. HARDY, ROSS, AND WHITNEY . I?8

THE PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION. By THOMAS

MULVEY

I. THE LEGISLATURE . .189

II. THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR . 19

III. THE CABINET . . I 93

IV. THE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL . 195

V. THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL . . 195

VI. THE SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR . . 2OO

The Registry Branch Prisons, Asylums, and Eleemosynary
Institutions Provincial Board of Health Vital Statistics
The Liquor Licence Branch

VII. THE TREASURER OF THE PROVINCE . . 2IO

Audit Bureau of Archives The Office of the King's Printer
VIII. THE MINISTER OF LANDS, FORESTS, AND MINES . 2l6

National Parks Department of Mines

IX. THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION . . 22O

The Public Schools High Schools Boards of Education
Normal Schools Separate Schools The University Pro
vincial University and School Statistics for Year ending June
30, 1912

X. THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT . . . 230

Game and Fisheries Bureau of Labour
XI. THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE . . 232

XII. SPECIAL COMMISSIONS . 235

Niagara Falls Park Commission Railway and Municipal
Board Hydro-Electric Power Commission The Timiskam-
ing and Northern Ontario Railway Commission

CONTENTS ix

FINANCE AND TAXATION. By JAMES MAYOR PAGE

I. EARLY PROVINCIAL FINANCE OF UPPER CANADA . 243

II. PROVINCIAL FINANCE SINCE CONFEDERATION . . 2 r o

III. EARLY MUNICIPAL FINANCE AND TAXATION . -,58

The Municipal Loan Fund, 1852-73

IV. RECENT MUNICIPAL FINANCE AND TAXATION . 2 68

ILLUSTRATIONS

JOHN GALT

From the portrait by Irvine in the Chateau de Raviezay

Frontispiece

TORONTO

(1) SPADINA AVENUE BETWEEN OXFORD STREET AND

COLLEGE STREET, 1864

(2) THE FIRST POST-OFFICE IN TORONTO, 1792-1827

(3) THE FIRST ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL IN TORONTO,

BUILT 1825, AT THE SOUTH-WEST CORNER OF
JARVIS STREET AND HOSPITAL STREET

From the John Ross Robertson Collection in ike Toronto
Public Library

Facing page 48

TORONTO

(1) THE FIRST COURT-HOUSE, BUILT l8lO, ON THE

NORTH SIDE OF WEST RICHMOND STREET
WHERE THE CONFEDERATION LIFE BUILDING
NOW STANDS

(2) THE NORTH SIDE OF FRONT STREET EAST, 1860

(3) THE NORTH SIDE OF KING STREET WEST FROM

TORONTO STREET TO CHURCH STREET, 1834

From the John Ross Robertson Collection in tJie Toronto
Public Library

TORONTO

(1) VIEW OF KING STREET IN 1836

(2) RESIDENCE AND WAGON-MAKER'S SHOP NEAR

THE CORNER OF KING STREET AND YONGE
STREET, 1815

From the John Ross Robertson Collection in the Toronto
Public Library

xl

xii THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO

SIR JOHN BEVERLEY ROBINSON . Facing page 88

From a painting in the Department of Education, Toronto

THE FIRST PARLIAMENT OF ONTARIO 104

PREMIERS OF ONTARIO .... ,,136

ONTARIO IN THE DOMINION
GENERAL OUTLINES

VOL. XVII

ONTARIO IN THE DOMINION:
GENERAL OUTLINES

THE circumstances under which Upper Canada was
set apart as a community, and the character of its
early settlers, fixed its future destiny. It was, by
deliberate design, the region reserved for the English-speaking
portion of the people, and it became, by the rapid issue of
events, the shelter of the refugee loyalists of the American
Revolution. This has remained a fundamental factor in the
evolution of Ontario. That the genius of the English race
for self-government should reproduce itself here, and that
this should be accompanied by a steady and at times ardent
attachment to British connection, were equally inevitable.
Of the loyalists it may be said that they would have formed
a valuable immigration for the upbuilding of any state,
even for one less richly dowered by nature than this. They
gave to Ontario the traditions and the impulses which are
still its most precious possessions. The defects which they
developed under trying conditions do not detract from the
enduring nature of their achievements as a whole. During
the years immediately following the migration their priva
tions were many, and a bare living was only won by the
most arduous toil. Under such conditions the progress of
the new state was necessarily slow. Men could look ahead,
but not with the prospect of enjoying prosperity themselves.
Then came the war of invasion and the withdrawal from pro
ductive labour of the greater part of the male population.
The loyalist settlers once more made a supreme sacrifice, and
the courage with which they repelled the repeated attacks of
superior forces denoted qualities that in all ages of the world
have been held in high honour.

4 ONTARIO IN THE DOMINION

It may be that during the distinctively loyalist period
the province developed at a snail's pace as compared with
the neighbouring States of the American Union. Meagrely
furnished with capital for public works or private enterprises,
lacking a market for its surplus products, the province was
deprived of those opportunities for rapid material growth
which go far to reconcile men to the drawbacks of a rough
environment and a crude social existence. To the natural
barriers that separated the people from the French of Lower
Canada were added the unhappy dissensions arising out of
differences of race and creed. For these reasons an inland
community, restricted in its intercourse with civilization, cut
off from the main currents of thought in the Old World, was
forced in many respects to subsist upon itself, with the result
that undue emphasis was placed upon political controversy
and agitation.

This brings us to another essential factor in the life of the
province, and one that must be studied with care if we are
to understand the Ontario of to-day. The lessons of the
past have been potent in moulding the development of the
province. The constitution has derived its strength and the
policy its harmony from the experience and strife of previous
generations. It has been said that the state which fails to
honour and to profit by its own past must soon cease to exist.
Ontario has never forgotten its history, nor has it omitted
to learn and apply the teaching of a century and a quarter.
At the outset Simcoe, a man of many virtues and consider
able parts, was neither more nor less far-seeing than his
contemporaries. Everywhere throughout the British Empire
the forces of reaction were aroused. The young loyalist
colony in Upper Canada had been forced into existence by
one revolution. The greater revolution in France was now
in its early stages. This event cast its dark shadow over
the debates upon the Constitutional Act of 1791. If we look
vainly in that measure for generous concessions to the British
self-governing spirit at the hands of Pitt, Burke, and Fox,
and if we wonder somewhat impatiently why disorder in
France secured more attention from these brilliant states
men than the details of the bill, a little reflection will supply

GENERAL OUTLINES 5

the explanation. The revolutions in North America and in
France alarmed moderate men and resulted in postponing
parliamentary reform and in checking the democratic move
ment generally. Simcoe, therefore, was in accord with the
dominant ideas of the day when he endeavoured to set up
an aristocratic system and to establish a governing class.
This design, futile as it proved to be, bore a train of evils
which harassed the politics of the province for half a cen
tury. It produced the Family Compact. Simcoe's successors,
adapting their policy to changing conditions, followed in his
footsteps, trying to stem a tide which could not be con
trolled. The energies of the young community were turned
more to the solution of political problems than to internal
development, to the exploiting of vast possessions in land,
minerals, and timber, or to the possibilities of a rich agri
culture and a great commerce, which in our day attract to
Ontario the gaze of the world.

Finally, an armed rebellion, abortive in its effects but
startling because it seemed to be proof of general discontent
with British institutions, awakened statesmen to a sense of
the danger. In 1837, we should bear in mind, English parlia
mentary reform was but five years old, and so far from
cabinet responsibility being an unchallenged constitutional
maxim, the royal prerogative had been exercised to dismiss
a ministry as recently as 1834. The forced union of Upper
and Lower Canada in 1841 was in no sense a wise expedient.
What prospects it presented were rendered hopeless by the
refusal of the crown's representatives to yield all executive
control to ministers. When this error was ultimately rectified,
the inherent weakness of the new constitution began to dis
play itself. The two provinces were not without interests in
common ; but their ideals in education, in civil law, in the
relations of church and state, and in the conduct of public
affairs were utterly at variance. They could not be yoked
together. The federal principle was the true remedy for
communities so situated, and its adoption in 1867 brought
relief to the body politic, conferred full liberty of action
within an allotted sphere, and imparted to the spirit of
advancement its required stimulus.

6 ONTARIO IN THE DOMINION

If the province spent seventy-six years in evolving the
constitution best suited to its needs and wishes, the time was
not devoted to a single object. Important as that object
was, the attainment of efficiency in legislative machinery
alone could never absorb all the energies of an intelligent
people. However imperfect a parliamentary structure may
be, popular aims and ideals will find means of asserting them
selves. Upper Canada early displayed its zeal for systematic
progress. It was foremost in planning the organizations
that pertain to a well-ordered state. The resources of the
people were narrow, but their ideas were on a large scale
and their faith in the future undoubted. Municipal in
stitutions, the judiciary, and the system of education date
in embryo from the beginning. In these are to be found the
real capacity of a community to govern itself. The story of
parliamentary struggles can be more effectively staged. It
impresses the superficial observer more deeply. But if we
wish to apply the true test of a community's moral and
material vitality, we seek it in the methods employed to train
the people, to administer the laws, and to regulate civic affairs.
The extent to which Ontario has been influential in national
life is largely determined by the completeness of her develop
ment, and these methods are the basis of it. The schools,
imperfect at first, gradually improved until a practical
elementary training was within the reach of all. The vigour
of the system dates from the appointment of Ryerson as
superintendent, not the least of whose achievements is that
he evoked a genuine ardour for education from a frugal rural
population. By leaving the management of the schools
largely in the hands of the people in each locality, he was
able to place upon them the chief burden of support. The
central authority retained sufficient control to conduct the
training of teachers, to ensure harmony in the courses of
study, and to expand the system as the years wore on. The
excellent system of secondary schools, which owe so much to
Paxton Young and John Seath, opened for talent and in
dustry an easy path to advanced training. The long struggle
for a non-sectarian state university produced an institution
of the highest efficiency, whose graduates have attained dis-

GENERAL OUTLINES 7

tinction in every walk of life. Thus by its educational
institutions Ontario has provided men well qualified to fill
the professions and to enter political life, while, in addition,
they create and sustain an influential body of educated
opinion. In administering their schools the people of the
province received a sound training in the duties of citizen
ship, a discipline still further impressed upon them by the
working of their municipal system. The evolution of these
bodies is one of the most remarkable chapters in the annals
of the state. The native of Ontario is well equipped for
nearly every form of public duty. When he removes to
some other portion of the Dominion he carries with him
an experience of self-government and an insight into all its
modern phases which enable him, if endowed with natural
force of character, to perform the most useful functions of
the citizen. The courts of justice date from the foundation
of the province, and bear the impress of those lofty tradi
tions and principles which we are accustomed to associate
with the British courts of law. The bench, from the appoint
ment of Osgoode, the first chief justice, in 1792, has main
tained an enviable reputation for probity and talent. It
has been recruited from the foremost members of the legal
profession, and that profession itself has always occupied a
place of dignity in public estimation. The reorganization of
the Ontario system, following from time to time, in its general
outlines at least, the English courts, has tended to meet the
requirements of the province, and to afford adequate means
of establishing the rights of individuals. The enforcement of
law and order has a direct relation to the administration
of justice. If Ontario bears a good name for absence of
crime and for orderly habits of living, the respect for authority
which prevails throughout its bounds has been stimulated
by the judicial system. The following monographs upon
these phases of the provincial structure are of striking import
ance because they deal with the sources of that strength and
stability which Ontario has contributed to the Dominion.

Set free by the Confederation Act, the province was to
work out her own future. The partnership of the previous
twenty-five years had proved irksome. Lord Durham, in

8 ONTARIO IN THE DOMINION

one of the eloquent passages of his Report, declared that he
had found two nations warring in the bosom of a single
state. The condition he deplored was not merely perpetuated
in the constitution of 1841, but so far intensified by a closer
union that Upper Canada found her interests compromised and
her legislation hampered at every turn. The history of this
unfortunate experiment in government is given elsewhere in
this work 1 and need not be repeated here. It is sufficient to
point out that both parties to the arrangement were averse
from it, and neither can be reproached for wishing to withdraw.
In subsequent inter-provincial conferences they have demon
strated a willingness to work amicably together on behalf of
objects common to both. The release was welcomed with
special satisfaction by Ontario, and it was now to be seen
how complete freedom would be employed. Her people had
been substantially unanimous in favouring the new state
of things, and oddly enough the chief opponent of the change
became the first prime minister of the province. Only one
legislative chamber had been created. In it were gathered
many men of note. Divided, it is true, by party differences,
they were pledged to unity by the oft-expressed desire to
promote, without let or hindrance, those provincial interests
which had been too long neglected. In the following pages
the political record of Ontario for almost half a century is
presented in detail for the first time, and we are thus enabled
to judge the sincerity of past professions in the light of things
accomplished.

The task was not taken up with absolute confidence.
There were fears of a subordinate position in the Dominion
where the greater would entirely overshadow the less ; of
friction in jurisdiction so serious as to render nugatory the
long-sought autonomy ; of a tendency to pettiness in aims
and legislation ; of a heavy loss in men drawn away to the
larger parliamentary sphere. All these fears proved ground
less. The trustees of a great estate proved equal to the duty
cast upon them. The provincial legislation developed on
broad lines the various departments of moral, social, and
civic life. There was no absorption into the Dominion in

1 Section in, United Canada, 1840-1867.

GENERAL OUTLINES 9

the sense that the identity of the province dwindled away
and men of the best calibre sought elsewhere the careers
denied them at home. Ontario was incorporated into the
federal system in the fullest meaning of the term, was the
mainstay of the union during both extremes of fortune, and
yet has asserted an individuality and maintained an exclusive
entity without sapping the vigour of the nation.

The latest phase of provincial growth is the most complex
to analyse because the marked expansion of natural resources
seems to overshadow everything else, and may yet pro
foundly affect the moral and social forces. In 1867 Ontario
was, as has been said, a great estate. But its realized wealth
lay in agriculture. The manufacturing interest was not ex
tensive. The mining industry was in its infancy. The pro
vince was essentially an agricultural one, and farming was
carried on with skill and enterprise. The story of its begin
nings and development possesses the fascination which must
always attach to a pursuit forming the basis of the state.
Untiring industry and enforced frugality had moulded the
character of the people. The doctrines of laisser-faire were
still in the ascendant, but the legislature thrust theory aside
by actively assisting the farmer and increasing his voting
power. Goldwin Smith declared that Ontario might have
been a nation in itself. The statistics that represent
Ontario's share of Canadian resources reveal greater oppor
tunities than were even suspected by the pioneer explorers.
They are a revelation to the average person who deems
himself well informed. The extensions of the provincial
boundaries have added large areas to the original domain,
and the precise value of these the future must determine.
Apparently the province is on the threshold of a remarkable
expansion, and the effect of this upon institutions and char
acter can only be conjectured. A century may elapse before
it will be possible to depict with accuracy the effects of a
transformation from moderate prosperity to opulence and
power. We cannot as yet fully comprehend the modifica
tions of tastes and standards and the displacements of
political authority which may be wrought by great eco
nomic changes. These are the outstanding considerations

io ONTARIO IN THE DOMINION

suggested by the writers who follow. Each has brought the
fruits of long reflection and close investigation to his task.
Upon the array of evidence here presented it is well to
generalize with the prudence that should mark every form
of inductive reasoning. This at least stands out in bold
relief : Ontario is one of the most conspicuous examples
in history of what may be accomplished by a state within
a federal union, and such may be her most solid legacy to
the ages and her best right to an enduring fame.

PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

INTRODUCTORY

IN 1763, when Canada passed from the control of France
to that of Great Britain, there were few permanent
French settlements in the immense territory now in
cluded under the name of the Province of Ontario. With
the exception of the settlement on the Detroit River of about
one thousand souls, one-third of whom lived along the eastern
bank of the river between the present town of Walkerville
and the mouth of the Canard River, the whole population
of Canada, about sixty thousand, was within the confines
of what is now the Province of Quebec. The centres of popu
lation were around the towns of Quebec, Three Rivers, and
Montreal, and along the River St Lawrence between Quebec
and Montreal.

If the permanent settlements were sparse west of the
Ottawa River, it was not because the region was an unknown
wilderness. Every lake, and every stream that would float
a canoe, had been travelled by some intrepid Frenchman.
The Recollets and Jesuits had planted missions in the country
of the Hurons between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, and
at favourable places along the Great Lakes from the foot of
Lake Ontario to the head of Lake Superior. More explor
ing expeditions had been sent out from French Canada than
from any other part of the world. It is no exaggeration to
say that the whole of North America was discovered through
the mouth of the St Lawrence : Jolliet and Marquette, La
Salle, Radisson, V6rendrye, Mackenzie, Fraser, and Thompson
all first navigated the St Lawrence before venturing on their
expeditions into the interior of the country, or to the Arctic,
or Hudson Bay, or the Pacific.

13

I 4 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

For one hundred and fifty years France laboured to build
up a strong colony in Canada, and the result at the end of
that time was a scattered population of less than seventy-five
thousand people. Historians are prone to put the blame
for this comparative lack of success in colonization on the
methods adopted by France. But during the time she held
possession of New France the mother country did every
thing possible, according to her lights, both directly and
indirectly, to build up a powerful colony in Canada. She
granted monopolies to trading companies on condition that
they should establish settlements. She sent out regiments
of soldiers, and when they were no longer needed in the field
she placed them on the land. But it cannot be said that
France was eminently successful in establishing a strong,
self-reliant colony in Canada.

Geographic influences tended to retard emigration from
the homeland. The climatic conditions were harsher than
those of sunny France. The arable soil was inferior in quality,
and much labour had to be expended in clearing away the
forest before food crops could be produced. Often the land
after being cleared was found unfit for cultivation or so
coarse and rocky as to be almost worthless for agricultural
purposes. Conditions necessitated a reversion to a lower
economic type of existence.

No part of the world furnished more luxuriant forests.
In these magnificent forests roamed all kinds of game and
fur-bearing animals. The French colonist was irresistibly
drawn to the adventurous life of the trapper and the fur
trader. The long rivers and numerous lakes furnished him
a highway for thousands of miles from his home on the banks
of the St Lawrence. Besides, his pelts found a ready sale
in France, where fur-trimmed garments and beaver hats were
the fashion.

The nomadic and adventurous life of the French pioneer,
due to the influences of climate and of natural highways
leading far into the interior, made him restless and difficult
to control. He chafed under the exacting conditions laid
upon him by a paternal government separated from him by
an ocean barrier over two thousand miles in width.

THE LOYALISTS 15

The environment of the settler in New France was in
sharp contrast with that of his hereditary enemies who occu
pied the narrow coastal plain between the Appalachian Moun
tains and the sea. Here, under a less severe climate and on
a more fertile soil, the English colonist became a farmer and
a tradesman. The density of the population led to unifica
tion. As yet there were no annoying regulations imposed
upon them by the home government. Their territorial
growth kept pace with the growth of population. Here was
exemplified in the fullest degree that general law of expan
sion and strength ' The more nearly the political area coin
cides with the ethnic the greater is the strength and stability
of the state.' The time came, however, when expansion
beyond the Alleghany Mountains became a necessity. At
length all the best farming land east of the mountains was
occupied, and as the fertility of the western slope became
well known, the struggle between the French and the English
for possession of the Ohio valley commenced and could not
end until one or the other was driven from the continent.
From the beginning there was never any doubt which nation
would be the ultimate victor. France fought valiantly, but
was at last forced to yield and to leave Great Britain in
possession of practically the whole of the North American
continent.

THE LOYALISTS

The final struggle had taught the British authorities the
immense possibilities of the territory they had won, and
without loss of time they hastened to make laws for its
government. While they were in the business of law-making,
they thought that as the old colonies had been neglected in
that particular for some years, a few acts might be passed
for their benefit and for the good of the Empire as a whole.
These laws were neither exacting nor arbitrary. While they
were opposed by nearly the entire population of the thir
teen colonies as being unnecessarily vexatious and irritating,
there was a difference of opinion among the colonists as to
the best method of correcting the abuses and leading the

16 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

British government to see the mistake it had made. A
large number, not by any means a majority, were for separa
tion ; fully as many, if not more, were opposed to separation ;
and the remainder, in numbers not nearly so great as the
other two classes, were neutral. Those opposed to separa
tion contended that the British parliament was liberal and
broad-minded enough to listen to argument and were con
fident that justice would soon be forthcoming.

It is not the purpose here to discuss the merits or short
comings of either party in the great struggle that lost Britain
her fairest colonies and was the means of building up to the
north of these old colonies a dominion in all respects the
most important of her present possessions. One party, the
whigs, from the first were for separation. The other party,
the tories, who were, if anything, more active than the
whigs before the Revolution in seeking to correct abuses,
believed that the best interests of the colonies would be
served by remaining a part of the Empire, and that, after
the peculiar crisis in political affairs in Britain had passed
away, Britain's sense of justice would lead her to remove the
causes of dissatisfaction. Trusting in this faith and never
realizing that the dispute would have to be settled by a
resort to war, they were unprepared when the supreme
moment arrived. They were as reluctant to resort to force
to compel their opponents to accept their opinions as they
were to compel Britain to redress their grievances. Taken
unawares, the tories in nearly every section were disarmed,
imprisoned, and terrorized. Thus, at the beginning of the
struggle, the whigs gained an advantage that they never
lost. When armed resistance to authority was instituted
the whole situation was changed. The rebellion must be
crushed at any price. Their inactivity in the initial stages
compelled the tories against their will to sanction Britain's
military programme and to see relief only in the success
of British arms.

When war broke out many of the persecuted loyalists
fled to Canada. Those able to bear arms enlisted as soldiers
and were formed into loyalist battalions to aid the British
cause. Refugees from the valleys of the Mohawk and the

THE NIAGARA SETTLEMENT 17

Hudson went to Niagara or to Chambly on the Richelieu.
The refugees at Niagara were formed into a corps of Rangers
commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel John Butler. Those
who came to Chambly and Montreal were formed into the
King's Royal Regiment of New York, commanded by Sir
John Johnson. The courage and audacity of these two
corps in the border warfare of New York made them objects
of the most intense hatred of the \vhigs.

The unexpected success of the rebellious party blasted all
the hopes of the upholders of the authority of the crown.
All their efforts and suffering had been in vain, but the
greatest blow of all, however, fell when, by the Peace of
Versailles, signed in 1783, it was found that Britain had
abandoned the loyalists to their fate. The active loyalists
could not remain in their old homes. Their estates were
confiscated and their families scattered ; in many cases this
had happened long before the struggle ended. Punishment
in the most humiliating forms, even the death penalty, was
imposed upon those who dared to return to their homes.
Emigration was all that was left to these unfortunate people.
Thousands went to England, some to the West Indies, and
a few to Florida, then a Spanish colony, where they soon
lost their identity. The larger portion, however, went
northward to Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. In
these provinces liberal grants of land were made them. They
were the first actual settlers of that part of Quebec now
known as the Province of Ontario.

THE NIAGARA SETTLEMENT

The loyalist settlement at Niagara began a few years
before that along the St Lawrence, Lake Ontario, and the Bay
of Quinte ; therefore it will occupy our attention first. The
fort at Niagara was on the east bank of the river at its mouth
and was in possession of the British until given up to the
United States by Jay's Treaty of 1794, along with those of
Detroit, Mackinac, Oswegatchie and others. The evacua
tion took place in 1796. These forts were held by the British

VOL. XVII B

18 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

after the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, because
the United States had not fulfilled their obligations regard
ing the loyalists. Niagara and Detroit were centres of
British power and havens for distressed loyalists.

On September 13, 1779, General Haldimand, the governor-
in-chief of Canada, knowing the rich character of the soil
at Niagara, proposed to Lord George Germain that farmers
should be encouraged to settle on land near the fort and raise
produce to supply the garrison. By a treaty with the
Senecas concluded by Sir William Johnson in 1764 a tract
of land about fourteen miles long by four wide, comprising
land on both sides of the Niagara River, had been ceded to
the British. The Missisaugas claimed the land on the west
side of the river, and they confirmed the treaty made with
the Senecas. In 1778 log barracks were built on the west
bank, and it was here that it was proposed to form a settle
ment. In 1780 Haldimand 's plan was approved by Lord
Germain. Haldimand conferred with Lieutenant-Colonel
John Butler, commander of the Rangers, who was at Quebec,
and gave instructions that, for the better accommodation
of His Majesty's loyal subjects who had been driven from
their homes, land should be divided into lots and distributed
to refugees who were capable of cultivating the soil. If, after
peace should be restored, any of them desired to quit Niagara
and return to their old homes, they were to be at liberty to
do so. The settlers were to have the land rent free and to
sell the produce of it not required for their own consumption
to the commander-in-chief, and not to traders. They were
to have no claim to the lands, but if they left they were to
have the right to dispose of their stock and produce and they
would be paid for their improvements to the land. When
land was so plentiful this regulation appears rather severe.
Haldimand, however, was the firm friend of the loyalists,
and in very many cases he advanced money and granted
concessions to needy applicants without authority from the
home government.

In the summer of 1780 the clearing and breaking up of
the land had begun, so that winter wheat could be sown.
The wheat arrived too late, and Butler applied for sixty

19

bushels of spring wheat and oats, twelve bushels of buck
wheat and a barrel of Indian corn for spring planting. At
this time Butler reports that four or five families were
settled on the land and were building houses.

On May 20, 1781, Butler acknowledges the receipt of
the grain and asks for a forge which had been promised in
the preceding year, and for iron fit for ploughshares, axes,
and hoes. He is very sanguine of the success of the settle
ment and says that it will be self-sustaining after one year.
When the land for settlement was thrown open, seven or
eight Rangers brought their families from the frontier near
the Hudson and asked to be discharged and to be granted
a year's provisions. In the summer of 1782 Butler wrote
Haldimand that sixteen families, numbering sixty-eight per
sons, had settled, and that they owned forty-nine horses,
forty-two cattle, thirty sheep, and one hundred and three
hogs. The settlers had come from the Susquehanna valley
in Pennsylvania and from Tryon County in New York.
In 1783 the settlers petitioned Lieutenant-Colonel Butler
for a more permanent tenure of their land. Under their
present tenure they were subject to the whim of the officer
commanding the fort and were liable to be turned off their
land at any time. They suggested paying a fixed rent for
a term of eight years.

If the loyalists had any hope of regaining their farms in
the old colonies, their hopes were destroyed when they learned
the nature of the provisional articles of peace and reconcilia
tion agreed to between Great Britain and the United States.
It is true there was a clause in these articles for their benefit;
but they did not expect justice from their late opponents,
and the reports from their old homes indicated clearly that
they were correct in their judgments. Meetings were held
in various districts in the old colonies and resolutions were
passed ordering those who had returned to leave before
June 10, 1783 ; if they remained they, along with any others
who might return, were to be subjected to severe measures.
Deserters from the provincial corps were sent away when
they returned to their old homes, but those from the regulars
were allowed to stay. The purpose of this discrimination

20 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

was probably to dissuade the loyalists from returning to
claim their property.

At the end of 1783 an official report shows that forty-six
families had settled in the vicinity of Niagara and had built
forty-four houses and twenty barns, cleared seven hundred
and thirteen acres and had one hundred and twenty-three
acres sown with winter wheat, and three hundred and forty-
two acres were ploughed ready for the spring sowing. The
settlement already formed at this place was a nucleus around
which soldiers from other corps, associated loyalists, and
discharged soldiers from the regular regiments began to
settle. The older settlement was of the greatest help to
their distressed brethren who arrived later.

The war had been virtually concluded by the end of the
year 1782, but the Treaty of Paris, as already stated, was not
signed until September 3, 1783, immediately after the signing
of the Treaty of Versailles. In direct violation of the fifth
and sixth clauses of the treaty several States of the Union
passed acts for the punishment of the loyalists and the con
fiscation of their estates. As the result of these acts not only
pronounced loyalists, but moderate sympathizers, were driven
out of the country. Hundreds of non-combatants were
forced to go to the nearest place where British troops were
stationed. The numbers already at cantonments of pro
vincial corps at Niagara, Chambly, Ile-aux-Noix, Sorel, and
Montreal were largely increased by these refugees, and the
British authorities in Canada had a difficult task to shelter,
clothe, and feed the numbers that arrived.

Persecuted by their enemies and seemingly abandoned
by the British government, theirs was a hard fate. Haldi-
mand, however, was equal to the supreme task before him.
During his long and brilliant career as a soldier and adminis
trator, no act of this able man stands out so prominently, or
was ultimately to prove so valuable to the nation he served,
as the location of the loyalist corps and their friends on the
unoccupied land under his control.

Orders were received by Haldimand on November 24,
1783, to disband the provincials forthwith, but he deferred
action till December 24, and these corps remained at their

SETTLING OF THE LOYALISTS 21

stations until the spring, when their members were located
at points advantageous for settlement. Butler's Rangers
were sent to Niagara, and Colonel de Peyster and Major
Ross, who were in command at the fort, were given instruc
tions to receive them and to care for them until they were
established in new homes.

SETTLING OF THE LOYALISTS

The foremost loyalist in Canada was Sir John Johnson,
son and heir of Sir William Johnson. He occupies such a
prominent place in the history of the critical period during
and immediately after the War of the Revolution that a short
sketch of his career is necessary to a proper understanding
of his activity as a soldier and as a friend of the refugee
loyalists and the Indians of the Six Nations.

On the death of his father on July n, 1774, John Johnson
succeeded to the title and his immense estates on the Mohawk
River. The Six Nations, particularly the Mohawks, trans
ferred to the son the implicit faith they had in the father,
and, as superintendent - general and inspector - general of
Indian Affairs, he rendered valuable services to the crown
in dealing with the red men. At the outbreak of the revolu
tion Sir John Johnson was living on his estate surrounded
by loyal Palatine settlers and the newly arrived Scots High
landers, principally of the clan Macdonell.

Philip Schuyler of Albany, who had at first been chosen
for the task of invading Canada, was through illness com
pelled to relinquish his command to General Richard Mont
gomery. He was, however, soon able to undertake work
attended with less risk than the capture of Quebec. With
four thousand troops from New England Schuyler was sent
to disarm the loyalists in the Mohawk valley and to exact
assurances of neutrality from Sir John Johnson and his
friends. Hostages from the Palatines and the Highlanders
were taken and sent to Connecticut. Sir John and his friends
gave up their arms and agreed not to leave the country if
their property were not touched. In violation of this agree
ment the people were plundered and their stock was driven

22 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

off. After being subjected to every annoyance during the
winter of 1775-76, Sir John was secretly informed by his
friends in Albany that Schuyler intended to release him from
his parole and take him prisoner. Hurriedly burying his
papers and trusting to a negro servant to secrete his plate,
he gathered about him two hundred of his loyal friends and
set out by an unfrequented route for Montreal, where he
arrived in the last week of June 1776, the day after the city,
recently evacuated by the rebel invaders, was entered by
the victorious British troops under Sir Guy Carleton. Sir
John now applied for leave to raise a battalion from among
his friends on the Mohawk. This privilege was granted on
July 7, and soon the battalion was complete and was called
the King's Royal Regiment of New York. In 1780 a second
battalion was formed. During the progress of the war and
at its close many of the members of these corps fled from
their old homes, and with their families found their way over
the Lake Champlain and Richelieu River route to protection
under the flag of Britain.

Other loyalist corps, recruited in the old colonies and
after their disbandment settled in what is now the Province
of Ontario, are : the King's Rangers, commanded by Major
James Rogers ; the King's Loyal Americans, commanded by
Colonel Ebenezer Jessup ; the Queen's Loyal Rangers, com
manded by Lieutenant-Colonel Peters ; M c Alpine's Corps ;
and the first battalion of the 84th or Royal Highland Emi
grants. A large number of this latter regiment settled in
the county of Glengarry and at various points along the St
Lawrence and Lake Ontario.

It has been said that it is more difficult to disband an
army than to recruit one. When disbanded troops have no
homes to which they may go, when they are encumbered
with their families, when they must be supplied with food
and clothing, and when it is proposed to place them on lands
yet covered with primeval forest, lands yet unknown as to
fertility or suitability for farming, the task becomes one so
formidable that the most resolute might shrink from attempt
ing it. The duty of performing this great work fell to the
lot of General Haldimand and his secretary, Major Mathews.

SETTLING OF THE LOYALISTS 23

Amidst the clamour of factions and irritated and annoyed
by privilege-seekers, these officers, trained in all grades of
that strict and exacting school, the British army, undertook
this momentous task with a serenity and a cheerfulness
that was superior to every form of vexatious annoyance.
Duty was their watchword. It is an inspiration for one
to read in the voluminous correspondence of these men
how painstaking and careful they were in dealing with
the varied interests that had to be appeased in one form
or another.

First, much of the land had to be bought from the Indians.
No advantage was taken of these people. Every claim they
had to any part of the land on which it was proposed to place
the loyalists was settled to their satisfaction. Surveys had
to be made and a system of allotment of land had to be insti
tuted so that the humblest private soldier would not feel that
he was slighted because of his rank. Several claimed special
privileges, but they were given clearly to understand that
no favours would be shown. If there were to be any pre
ference, it would be given to the loyalists who served during
the war.

On May 26, 1783, the surveyor-general, Major Samuel
Holland, was given instructions to survey the land from the
last French seigniory to Cataraqui (Kingston) and from
there along the north shore of Lake Ontario to Niagara.
His deputy was John Collins. Other surveyors were M c Niff
and Sutherland, who surveyed the townships along the
St Lawrence. Holland, Collins, and another surveyor,
Louis Kotte, were engaged for the work from Cataraqui
westward.

On September 19, 1783, Captain Justus Sherwood of the
King's Loyal Americans, or Loyal Rangers, as they were
sometimes called, set out from Montreal to report upon the
land from the ' west end of Lake St Francis to the Bay Kenty.'
Accompanying Sherwood were Lieutenant J. Johns and two
men of the King's Rangers, and Ensign A. Botham and seven
men of the Loyal Rangers. The work seems to have been
pretty thoroughly done for some distance back from the
river. Sherwood reports the land good from Lake St Francis

24 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

to twelve miles above Oswegatchie (Prescott) and that twelve
townships six miles square could be laid out. He says : * The
six lower townships would be the best of the twelve, indeed,
I think there cannot be better land in America.' The land
on both sides of the Bay of Quinte he reports as good, but
he does not speak so favourably of that portion from Cataraqui
to Gananoque.

The loyalists both soldiers and associated loyalists
who had arrived at the several forts were far from being a
mild-mannered and submissive people. They made a great
deal of trouble, particularly after the corps were disbanded.
Some objected strenuously to going west into the wilderness.
Some wanted to settle on land near Montreal, and others
wanted to go to the land along the St John River, where they
fancied the loyalists were receiving more favours than they
would receive in the western settlements. Some deserted
and went to their old homes, while others were released from
their corps and given permission to go after being severely
reprimanded. Major Mathews wrote to the officers who
had charge of the camps to wink at the desertion of the
loyalists, as the province was well rid of those who did not
remain out of choice.

On May 13, 1784, orders were issued to the officers of the
various corps to embark the loyalists under their charge and
to proceed by boat up the St Lawrence to the townships
allotted to them. The principal officers who had charge
of them were Colonel Stephen de Lancey, chief officer, under
whom were Captain Maurer, Captain Barnes, the officers
of the various corps Sir John Johnson, Major Campbell,
Major Jessup, and Major Holland Major Peter Van Alstine,
who had charge of a party not connected with any of the corps
mentioned, and Captain Michael Grass, head of a similar
contingent lately arrived by boat from New York. Along
with each party were sent tents, clothing, provisions, and
tools, principally those required in clearing the land and
erecting houses in preparation for the winter. It was no
light task to provide for the large number, and it is a marvel
that the arrangements were so perfect.

Sir John Johnson's first battalion of the King's Royal

SETTLING OF THE LOYALISTS 25

Regiment of New York, sometimes called Royal Greens, or
Royal Yorkers, were to occupy the townships from Charlotten-
burgh westward. Lancaster was considered too low and
wet for settlement ; therefore it was not settled at first. In
June the whole party landed in New Johnstown, now Corn
wall, and after deciding which party would take certain
townships the land was drawn by lot ; slips of paper with
the number of the lots on them were put in a hat and
each person drew from it his own. Exchanges were made to
accommodate friends who wished to settle near each other.

The first battalion of the Royal Greens was composed
principally of Scottish Highlanders and German Palatines.
Some of the Highlanders were Roman Catholics and some
Presbyterians. Some of the Palatines were Presbyterians
and some Lutherans. Those of the same religion asked to
be placed together, and Haldimand gave his consent, pro
vided the regulations as to settlement were observed. It
was arranged that the Scottish Roman Catholics were to be
placed in township number I, Charlottenburgh ; then, in order,
the Scottish Presbyterians, the German Presbyterians, the
German Lutherans, and the Anglicans. The townships settled
by this regiment were numbers I, 2, 3, 4, and 5, now known
as Charlottenburgh, Cornwall, Osnabruck, Williamsburg, and
Matilda. Part of Jessup's corps settled upon townships
numbers 6 and 7 and part of 8, now known as Edwards-
burgh, Augusta, and Elizabeth town.

In the autumn of 1783 a party of the loyalists from the
city of New York, principally artisans, arrived under the
leadership of Captain Michael Grass. They were assigned
township number I from Cataraqui (Kingston). Number 2
was settled by part of Jessup's corps and part of the 84th
Regiment. The third township from Cataraqui, Fredericks-
burg, was settled by Major Rogers's corps and part of the
second battalion of the King's Royal Regiment. Number 4,
or Adolphustown, was settled by the remainder of the second
battalion of the King's Royal Regiment and by Van Alstine's
party of loyalists which had sailed from the port of New
York in seven vessels convoyed by the brig Hope of forty
guns. Van Alstine's party left New York on September

26

PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

8, 1783, and arrived in Quebec on October 8. They passed
the winter at Sorel with Grass's party and other loyalists.
The fifth township, Marysburgh, was occupied by the soldiers
of the various regular regiments that were leaving Canada.
These soldiers had served for twenty-one years, or nearly
that time, and preferred to stay in Canada. Part of this
township was settled by a detachment of the Hessian troops
under Baron Reitzenstein.

In October the disbanded troops and loyalists settled
on the St Lawrence and west of Cataraqui were mustered.
The result was as follows :

East of Cataraqui

West of Cataraqui

Township

Persons

Acres cleared

Township

Persons ; Acres cleared

I

456

12

I

220

86|

2

517

I0l|

2

416

146^

3

75

30

/>

J>

580

no return

4

203

lOlf

4

240

66

5

177

56|

5

251

33

6

1 66

122

Hessians

4 8

7

7

228

124

8

185

39l

. ...

I
2007

57i

i/55 339

- 1

There were 620 persons at Niagara, but there is no return
of the land cleared.

The settlers were mustered for the purpose of granting
rations. Governor Haldimand had received instructions from
the home government to reduce the supply of rations to the
loyalists, but he knew that the people were in need of help, and
took upon himself the responsibility of allowing a full ration.
Tools of all kinds, such as axes, grindstones, saws, nails,
hammers, augers, hoes, glass for windows, cooking utensils,
and many other necessaries were supplied at once. By the
above return it will be seen that the settlers had not been
idle. Houses of logs had been constructed and some fall

LOYALIST LOSSES CLAIMS 27

wheat was sown on the newly cleared land. A number of
the loyalists had during the first year by great effort cleared
land early enough to plant potatoes. After the transporta
tion of provisions, tools, and clothing was completed, bateaux
were provided for each township. The settlers were not
granted any live stock, but every assistance was given them
to bring in cattle from the old colonies. By the second year
several cattle, horses, and hogs were in the settlements. Fish
abounded in the lakes and rivers and game was plentiful, but
firearms were not granted. From the first, however, many
of the settlers had a flint-lock musket and a supply of
powder and bullets.

Saw-mills and flour-mills were established along streams
in all the districts, one mill often supplying three or four
townships. The first boards were split out of logs and
smoothed with a broad ax or sawed by hand with a whip-
saw. The w r heat was ground in hand-mills and in many-
cases pounded fine, by means of a large smooth stone, in a
mortar made by hollowing out the end of a short section of
a large maple tree.

LOYALIST LOSSES CLAIMS

In July 1783 the British parliament appointed a com
mission of five members to classify the losses and services
of the loyalists. The board began work in London and all
claims had to be submitted in writing before March 25, 1784.
Many of the loyalists who were connected with the various
corps sent in their claims through their commanding officers.
It was seen, however, that to do justice the time for re
porting losses would have to be extended and that repre
sentatives of the commission would have to visit America.
Hence Colonel Thomas Dundas and Jeremy Pemberton came
to Canada. They began work at Halifax on November 17,
1785, and continued until 1788. Their final report was
handed in on May 15, 1789. Evidence was taken at Halifax,
St John, Quebec, and Montreal. Only a small percentage
of the loyalists from the St Lawrence and westward could
afford the time during the season of open navigation to go

28 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

to Montreal, and the journey in winter was too long and
arduous, so that relatively few claims were presented. For
the 1401 claims heard in Canada $2,745,000 was paid, ranging
from $50 to $221,000, the latter sum being paid to Sir John
Johnson.

GRANTS TO LOYALISTS

The amount of land granted to the loyalists is set forth in
instructions to General Haldimand dated July 16, 1783 :

Whereas many of Our Loyal Subjects Inhabitants of
the Colonies and Provinces, now in the united States
of America, are desirous of retaining their Allegiance to
Us, and of living in our Dominions, and for this purpose
are disposed to take up and improve Lands in Our Pro
vince of Quebec ; and We being desirous to encourage
our said Loyal Subjects in such their Intentions, and
to testify our approbation of their loyalty to Us, &
Obedience to our Government, by alloting Lands for
them in our said Province ; And whereas We are also
desirous of testifying our approbation of the Bravery
and Loyalty of our Forces serving in our said Province,
and who may be reduced there, by allowing a certain
quantity of Land to such of the Non-Commissioned
Officers and private Men of Our said Forces, who are
inclined to become settlers therein. It is Our Will and
pleasure, that immediately after you shall receive this
Our Instruction, you do direct our Surveyor General of
Lands for our said Province of Quebec, to admeasure &
lay out such a Quantity of Land as you with the advice
of our Council shall deem necessary & convenient for
the Settlement of our said Loyal Subjects, the non-Com-
missioned Officers & private Men of our Forces which
may be reduced in our said Province, who shall be
desirous of becoming Settlers therein ; such Lands to be
divided into distinct Seigneuries or Fiefs, to extend from
two or four leagues in front, and from three to five
leagues in depth, if situated upon a Navigable River,
otherwise to be run square, or in such shape and in such
quantities as shall be convenient & practicable and
in each Seigneurie a Glebe to be reserved and laid out
in the most convenient spot, to contain not less than

GRANTS TO LOYALISTS 29

300 nor more than 500 Acres ; the propriety of which
Seigneuries or Fiefs shall be and remain vested in Us,
our Heirs and Successors, and you shall allot such parts
of the same as shall be applied for by any of our said
Loyal Subjects Non-Commissioned Officers & Private
Men of our Forces reduced as aforesaid, in the following
proportions ; that is to say

To every Master of a Family, One Hundred Acres, and
Fifty Acres for each person of which his Family shall
consist.

To every single Man Fifty Acres.

To every Non-Commissioned Officer of Our Forces
reduced in Quebec Two Hundred Acres.

To every private Man reduced as aforesaid One
Hundred Acres.

And for every Person in their Family Fifty Acres.

The said Lands to be held under Us Our Heirs &
Successors, Seigneurs of the Seigneurie or Fief in which
the same shall be situated, upon the same terms, acknow
ledgements and services, as Lands are held in our said
Province under the respective Seigneurs holding and
possessing Seigneuries, or Fiefs therein ; and reserving to
Us our Heirs and Successors, from and after the expira
tion of Ten years from the Admission of the respective
Tenants, a Quit Rent of one half penny P Acre.

Supplementary instructions, dated August 7, authorized
the governor-in-chief to allot to every field-officer one thou
sand acres, to every captain seven hundred acres, and to
every subaltern, staff or warrant officer five hundred acres,
and he was advised to intersperse these allotments with those
of the non-commissioned officers and privates of their own
corps, with the object ' that the several settlements may be
thereby strengthened and united, and in case of attack be
defended by those who have been accustomed to bear arms
and serve together.' Members of the organization known as
the Associated Loyalists were placed on the same footing as
those of other corps. Applicants were required to take the
oaths of allegiance, supremacy, abjuration, and declaration
before receiving their certificates, and grants were to be made
within twelve months, providing that they actually settled
upon their lands.

30 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

Instructions of August 23, 1786, to Lord Dorchester, who
succeeded Haldimand as governor-in-chief, regarding the
land grants are the same as those to Haldimand, but excep
tion was made in the case of the officers and men of the 84th
Regiment, now reduced, who wished to settle on lands in
Canada, or Quebec, as it was then called. The cause of this
exception was to fulfil a promise to all who would enlist,
made in instructions to the governors of New York and
North Carolina on April 3, 1775. The amount granted was
as follows :

To Field-Officers .... 5000 acres

,, Captains ..... 3000 ,,

,, Subalterns ..... 2000 ,,
,, Non-Commissioned Officers . . 200 ,,
,, Privates . . . . 50 ,,

On April II, 1785, scarcely a year after settling on their
lands, the loyalists, along with Sir John Johnson, petitioned
the king as follows :

To the King's Most Excellent Majesty.

The Petition of Sir John Johnston Baronet, and
others whose names are hereunto subscribed, on Behalf
of the Officers and Soldiers of the Provincial Troops
and Indian Department, who served under their Com
mand during the late Rebellion ; and of the other
Loyalists, their Associates, who have taken refuge in
Canada.

Most humbly Sheweth,

That the Persons of the above Description, animated
by your Petitioners' Example, having sacrificed their
Estates and Properties in support of Your Majesty's
Laws and Government, did faithfully serve in Canada,
and on its Frontiers, till the Reduction of these Corps ;
when being still actuated by the same Principle of
Loyalty and Affection, they, to the number of several
Thousands, resolved to settle within Your Majesty's
Government, on the Lands assigned them as a Reward
for their Services, and in pursuance of the Proclamation
of Your Majesty's Commissioners in the year 1776 ;
and entered earnestly on the Improvement thereof, with
a Prospect of making a Provision for their Families, and

GRANTS TO LOYALISTS 31

thereby contributing greatly to the Advantage, Strength,
and Security of that Province, and to the Increase of
Your Majesty's Revenues.

That the Tenure of Lands in Canada is such as to
subject them to the rigorous Rules, Homages and Reser
vations, and Restrictions of the French Laws and
Customs, which are so different from the mild Tenures
to which they had ever been accustomed, and which
continue to be enjoyed by the rest of Your Majesty's
subjects, has occasioned a general Discontent, and would
have induced many to decline accepting their Locations,
and to resolve on abandoning their Enterprize, but for
the Influence of your Petitioners, who had first led them
into the Service, and on whose Endeavours they relied
for obtaining, through Your Majesty's Favour, the Grant
of such Terms and Tenures, and the Establishment of
the same Laws as they formerly enjoyed under the
auspices of Your Majesty's Government. In full Con
fidence of this happy Event they were prevailed upon
to persevere in their Settlements, on which they have
already, at some Expence, and much Labour, erected
Habitations, and cleared Part of the Lands allotted
to them.

For the Attainment of these Objects, so essential to
the Happiness of Your Majesty's faithful Subjects, so
conducive to the Increase of these new Settlements, and
so salutary in their Consequences to the Public, we have,
upon mature Deliberation, formed a Plan, which with
the reasons in support of it, we humbly presume to
submit to Your Majesty's Royal Consideration.

1st. It is proposed, that the County of Point Boudet,
on Lake St Frangois, in the River St Lawrence, and
from thence Westward, shall be comprehended within
One District, distinct from the Province of Quebec,
under the Government of a Lieutenant Governor and
Council, to be appointed by Your Majesty, with the
necessary Powers of internal Regulation, but subordinate
to the Governor and Council of Quebec, in the same
manner as the Island of Cape Breton now is, to the
Government of Nova Scotia. This Territory will in
clude all the Settlements made or intended to be made
by the disbanded Corps, and the other Loyalists, while
it leaves all French Canada and the French Seigneuries
as they were before.

32 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

2dly. That this Territory shall be subdivided into
smaller Districts or Counties, Cataraqui being the
Metropolis, with Courts of Justice, to be established by
Your Majesty.

In support of such an Arrangement, we beg leave to
remark, that it will be productive of the most beneficial
Consequences, not only to the Settlers, but to the Nation
at large. Whilst this Territory remains a Part of the
Province of Quebec, and the Inhabitants amenable to
the Courts of Justice there and at Montreal, the Delay
and expence of an Attendance on those Courts, both
to Suitors and Witnesses, will be enormous, the distance
from Detroit to Montreal being not less than Six hundred
Miles, without any Road whatsoever, and the water
communication exceedingly tedious, precarious, and
during the Winter Season absolutely impassable : Crimes
will be committed with Impunity, from the difficulty
of Prosecutions ; and Civil Remedies in effect rendered
burthensome from the same causes.

The Inhabitants of this Territory, already amounting
to several Thousands, conceive with all Humility that
they have the strongest Grounds to hope for such an
exempt Jurisdiction as they ask for ; They were born
British Subjects, and have ever been accustomed to the
Government and Laws of England. It was to restore
that Government, and to be restored to those Laws, for
which from Husbandmen they became Soldiers, animated
with the Hope, even in the most gloomy Aspect of Public
Affairs, that should they fail in their Attempts to re
cover their former Habitations by a Restoration of Your
Majesty's Government, they would still find a Resource
in some Parts of the British Dominions, where they
might enjoy the Blessings of British Laws and of the
British Government ; and they still possess the greatest
Confidence, that by Your Majesty's Gracious Interposi
tion they will be exempted from the Burthens of French
Tenures, which, however congenial they may be to Men
born and bred under them, would be in the highest
Degree exceptionable to Englishmen.

The Petitioners have the more Confidence in the
Success of their Application, from reflecting that they
do not ask for more than has already been granted to
their Fellow Sufferers in Nova Scotia, for less indeed
than is enjoyed by those who are settled in the Province

GRANTS TO LOYALISTS 33

of New Brunswick, and only to be in the same situation
with the Settlers in the Island of Cape Breton. A
distinction between men under the same circumstances
of Prescription, Confiscation, and Attainder, and who
have been invited into the Public Service, and to take
Part in the Royal Cause, by the same assurances of
Protection, and the same Gracious Offers of Rewards,
in the one case continuing to Settlers the Blessings of
the British Constitution, and in the other subjecting
them to the Hardships of French Tenures and French
Laws, they trust will not be permitted by a Gracious
Sovereign who is the Father of all His People.

In consideration of the vast extent of this Territory,
along an important and valuable Communication, which
is not only the Channel of the Fur Trade, but the Resi
dence of those Nations of Indians who took part in
Support of the Royal Cause, the Security, growth and
extension of these Settlements, must evidently be an
object of the utmost Consequence, not only as it will
most essentially secure and promote that Trade, but
as it will preserve those Indians in their adherence to
Your Majesty.

The United States are duly impressed with this Idea,
and have already manifested a purpose of supplanting
us in the Friendship of the Indians ; and unless they
are counteracted, the British Interest with those Nations
will very rapidly decline. We humbly presume that
effectually to counteract them nothing would be so
conducive as the Establishment of a liberal System of
Tenure, Law, and Government in this new Settlement ;
this would best contribute to the Growth and Increase
of it ; whilst it would stimulate the Adventurers them
selves to the most vigorous Exertions, it would invite
and encourage Emigration to it ; for as the present In
habitants before the Rebellion principally resided in the
now United States, their extensive connections there,
from their Attachment to your Majesty, their ancient
Predilection in favour of the British Government, their
Dislike of the Republican Government they now live
under, as well as from their Family, and Personal
Attachments, would be strongly induced to remove to
this new Colony. Should Your Majesty graciously
vouchsafe Your Royal Protection to these Settlements,
we are confident that in every Competition for the

VOL. XVII C

34 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

Favour of the Indians Your Majesty will have a decided
Advantage, not only from the Influence which many
of your Petitioners are known to have over them, but
because Numbers of the present Settlers have long been
in Habits of Friendship and mutual good Offices with
them, sharing the same Dangers, and fighting in the
same Cause, and whose former Prepossession would
thus, by means of a familiar and constant Intercourse
with Your Majesty's Faithful Subjects, be best pre
served and rendered permanent.

Upon the whole, whether we consider the Relief and
Prosperity of the Settlers as Sufferers in the Cause of
their King and Country, for whom Your Majesty has
ever expressed so Benevolent a Disposition, or the
Advancement of the Settlement, as conducive to the
Benefit of the Nation, in either View, and much more
in both respects, do we conceive that the Plan now pro
posed is such an one as will merit and obtain Your Royal
Attention and Patronage.

For our Part, we conceive ourselves bound by the
strongest Ties to use every Endeavour in our Power to
promote the Wishes of these People ; It was by our
Example that numbers of them were induced to quit
their former Possessions, and to take up Arms, by which
they have been deprived of their Property, and Banished
from their Country ; and it was from their expectation
of the Success of our Representation to their Sovereign,
that they have entered upon the arduous undertaking
of forming Settlements in a wild and inhospitable
Country : Well knowing the Disposition of these People,
and the habits in which they have been bred, we think
it our Duty most respectfully to declare it to be our
opinion, that unless they can obtain the object they are
in pursuit of, they will be discouraged from carrying on
their present Enterprize, and prefer some other part of
Your Majesty's Dominions, where they may enjoy the
Blessings of the British Constitution, but where perhaps
they would not be equally useful as they will be in their
present situation, should they receive the Protection
they solicit.

Your Petitioners, therefore, impelled by motives of
Humanity towards a Number of Distressed Families,
by a sense of Honor and Justice to a set of Deserving
Men, who placed their Confidence in them, and to

GRANTS TO LOYALISTS 35

whose Eventual Loss of Property and Reverse of
Fortune, they consider themselves in a great Degree
accessary, and at the same time by a Conviction of the
Public Utility of the Measure, most humbly implore
Your Majesty that the Blessings of the British Laws
and of the British Government, and an exemption from
the Tenures, may be extended to the aforesaid Settle
ments.

nth April 1785. (Signed)

GUY JOHNSON, Col. 6 Nations
& Superintendant of their
Affairs.
ROB T LEAKE, Major late 2 d JOHN BUTLER, L* Colonel Com-

Batt n K.R. Reg* New York. manding late Rangers.
JOHN MUNRO, Cap* late I s * EBEN JESSUP, late L* Colonel
Batt n K.R. Reg* New York. Command 8 King's Loyal

Americans.
P. DALY, Cap* late i 8 * Batt n JAMES GRAY, late Major K.R.

K.R. Reg* New York. Reg 4 New York.

THO S GUMMERSAL, Cap* late EDW. JESSUP, Major Commd g
I s * Batt n K.R. Reg* New late Corps of Royal Rangers.
York.

These settlers again showed their dissatisfaction through
their magistrates, who wrote to Sir John Johnson in December
1786 making several suggestions. These suggestions were
embodied in another petition, which is as follows :

To His Excellency the Right Honorable Guy Lord
Dorchester Captain General and Governor in Chief of
the Colonies of Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick,
and their dependencies, and Vice Admiral of the same.
General and Commander in Chief of all His Majesty's
Forces in the said Colonies, and the Island of New
foundland.

The petition of the Subscribers, residing in the new
settlement, in behalf of themselves and the Inhabitants
at large, in the respective Townships, from Point au
Baudet on Lake St Francis Westward, as far as Niagara.

Humbly sheweth,

That your petitioners impressed with the more lively
sentiments of gratitude, beg leave through the Channel
of your Lordship, to offer their sincere, and united

36 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

tribute of thanks to their most gracious Sovereign for
the singular, and multiplied favors conferred on them ;
at the same time they presume that your Lordship
will with your wonted Goodness, interest yourself in
regard to some propositions they have to make which
with submission, they conceive are very essential to
promote the happiness of the People, and facilitate
the progress of the settlement ; and they humbly
hope, that what your Lordship cannot with propriety
grant yourself, you will be so condescending as to
recommend to His Majesty, for His Royal approbation
and consent.

1st. It is the confirm'd opinion of your Petitioners
from the fullest conviction, that if the blessing of the
British Constitution was extended to this infant Settle
ment, and their lands granted according to English
Tenures, such a change wou'd produce many happy
effects, among the rest to augment the happiness of the
People, to strengthen the bands as well as the Interest
of Government, to give a Spur to Industry, to popula
tion and Commerce and damp the hopes, and the expec
tations of their enemies ; at the same time they must
confess, it is not without some degree of envy that they
reflect on privileges, and indulgences, granted to their
fellow Sufferers in Nova Scotia which they themselves
do not enjoy especially when the same motives which
engaged them in the Honourable and Glorious cause of
defending the rights of their Sovereign, and the dignity
of the Nation, places them on the same footing, and
gives them equal pretensions, but notwithstanding they
rest satisfied in the hope that your Lordship's represen
tation of their situation, will induce his Majesty to inter
pose his Royal favor in their behalf, to remove all cause
of Jealousy and crown the happiness of your Petitioners ;
the arrangement for this purpose so anxiously wished
for, and the arguments in support of it, are so well
described in a petition drawn up by Sir John Johnson
and others, in behalf of themselves and the Loyalists
at large in this Province (and presented to His Majesty
in Council the nth April 1785) renders it unnecessary
to add anything further on the subject at present,
except to beg leave to refer your Lordship to the afore
said Petition and to transmit you a Copy, which will
accompany this.

GRANTS TO LOYALISTS 37

2cl. Your Petitioners pray for some assistance in
establishing the Church of England, and Scotland, in
this Infant Settlement, and that a Glebe of Four Hundred
Acres of Land in each Township, may be set apart for a
Clergyman.

3d. They pray for some assistance towards estab
lishing a school in each district, viz. New Johnstown,
New Oswegatchie, Cataraqui and Niagara, for the
purpose of teaching English, Latin, Arithmetic and
Mathematics.

4th. They pray for a prohibition of Pot and pearl
Ash and Lumber from the State of Vermont, to prevent
a door being opened for an Illicit Trade from the United
States, which wou'd be a detriment to the Province in
general, to this Settlement in particular, and only bene
ficial to a few interested Individuals they also pray
for a Bounty to be laid on the above Articles, as well
as on Hemp, in order to stimulate their Industry, and
encourage their internal Trade.

5th. They pray that Government will be so generous
in addition to former Bounties, to grant them a loan
of three months' provisions, consisting of the article of
Pork only, to be paid by the Settlers in three Years,
under such restrictions and obligations as may be
thought most expedient to insure the punctual payment
of the same.

6th. They beg to inform your Lordship that a number
of the Inhabitants who have been in the service are so
unfortunate as not to have drawn any Clothing by
reason of their not being in the Province at the periods
when it was issued, and that others who cannot be put
in this class are yet notwithstanding on account of their
distress'd situation rendered objects deserving of such an
indulgence.

7th. They pray that some Plan may be adopted to
expedite the Business of running the division lines in
the respective Townships, to prevent the increase of an
evil already experienced on account of that not being
done.

8th. They pray that a Post Road may be established
from Montreal to Cataraqui with Post Offices for
Letters &c at New Johnstown, New Oswegatchie, and
Cataraqui.

9th. They pray that a passage may be opened from

38 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

the head of the Bay of Quinty through Lake Huron for
the Benefit of the Indian Trade, a Channel which at the
same time that it is universally acknowledged to be
Superior to the Old holds out a prospect of the most
flattering advantages, not only to the Commerce of
this Province in general, but to this settlement in par
ticular. It is also humbly requested that the shipping
may be allowed to Rendezvous at Cataraqui and the In
habitants have the free use of the Lakes for whatever
craft they may chuse to build.

loth. They pray that three places may be pitched
upon between Point au Baudet and Cataraqui for the
purpose of receiving Grain from the Settlers when they
have any to Spare, in consequence of your Lordship's
generous proposal communicated to them thro' the
Inspector of Loyalists.

nth. They pray your Lordship will be so kind as to
use your influence with the Commissioners appointed
to examine the Claims of the Loyalists, to induce them
to make a Journey to New Johnstown, New Oswegatchie,
and Cataraqui to investigate the Claims of the Loyalists
on this Communication, as the poverty of the Settlers
in General and the expence of an attendance at Quebec
or Montreal in the prosecution of their Claims, will
discourage them from the attempt, or oblige them totally
to relinquish them.

1 2th. They also pray that your Lordship will be so
good as to confirm to them the use of the Locks or
Canalls as hitherto granted by his Honor, Lieut. Governor
Hope, and that you will likewise please to put them on
an equal footing with the 84th Reg* in Regard to the
proportion of Lands granted to that Corps ; this is a
flattering object to your petitioners whose finances are
mostly exhausted in the expensive and Arduous task of
forming a Settlement in a New Country, and which on
that account as well as the justice of their pretensions
they hope will induce your Lordship to take this Matter
into consideration.

Upon the whole your Petitioners have the fullest con
fidence that your Lordship will be so good as to pay
every attention to the several Articles contained in this
Petition that accord with Reason and Justice, and those
which may appear otherwise they conceive your Lord
ship will kindly impute to a mistaken opinion, or want

GRANTS TO LOYALISTS 39

of proper information. And Your Petitioners as in
duty bound will ever Pray

(Signed)

PETER VAN ALSTINE 4th Township ALEX* MCDONELL Township No. i

rr 1 GEORGE SINGLETON 3 do S.ANDERSON do No. 2^

CT'ARCH MCDONALD 5 do JOHN MCDONELL do No. 3 &

2 JOHN EVERITT i do RICH D DUNCAN do No. 4 2

~ HENRY SIMMONS i do JOHN MUNRO do No. 5 ~

U WM FRASER do No. 6 o

"3 JUSTUS SHERWOOD"J g

~ JAMES CAMPBELL do No. 7 ~

j" JOHN JONES

NEW JOHNSTOWN, THQS SHERWOOD! , XT Q

Afrit i$tA, *7&7- PETER FRUL /

If this petition be compared with the Constitutional Act
of 1791, it will be seen that the settlers lately arrived from
the old colonies got all they asked for. It is also a proof
that the loyalists were not subservient subjects depending
for their privileges upon the will of their sovereign. They
believed in agitation by constitutional methods, such as by
petition. The Constitutional Act, as an answer to their
petition, fortified them in their belief. Because of their
faith in petitioning their sovereign instead of hastily flying
to arms to redress grievances, they were forced to defend a
sovereign whose acts they did not endorse. Their children,
holding a like faith, in the thirties of last century had to take
up arms to save Canada for the British Empire, happily
with more success than their fathers in the old colonies.

On July 24, 1788, it was proclaimed by Lord Dorchester,
by the advice and consent of the council, that that part of
Quebec west of the eastern boundary of the township of
Lancaster be divided into four districts called Lunenburg,
Mecklenburg, Nassau, and Hesse. The selection of these
names and also of the names of the townships in which the
loyalists first settled shows their affection and devotion to
their sovereign. Many townships were named after his
children, and the districts after principalities in Hanover.

Land boards and courts were organized in each district.
The land boards proceeded to grant lands to loyalists, who
continued to enter the province until nearly the end of the
century. Those who came in later were called ' late loyalists '
and were subjected to some annoyance unless they came

40 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

from some of the eastern provinces. By instructions of Lord
Dorchester on June 2, 1787, these boards were authorized
to grant two hundred acres of land to all who had improved
their former grants and two hundred acres to all new appli
cants who could establish their claims as loyalists.

On November 9, 1789, at the council of the Province of
Quebec,

His Lordship intimated to the Council, that it re
mained a question, upon the late Regulation for the
disposition of the Waste Lands of the Crown, whether
the Boards constituted for that purpose were authorized
to make Locations to the Sons of Loyalists, on their
coming to full Age, and that it was his wish to put a mark
of Honor upon the families who had adhered to the Unity
of the Empire, and joined the Royal Standard in America
before the Treaty of Separation in the year 1783.

The Council concurring with his Lordship, it is accord
ingly ordered :

That the several Land Boards take course for preserv
ing a Registry of the names of all persons falling under
the description aforementioned to the end that their
posterity may be discriminated from future settlers, in
the Parish Registers and Rolls of the Militia of their
respective Districts, and other Public Remembrances of
the Province as proper objects, by their persevering in
the Fidelity and Conduct so honourable to their ancestors,
for distinguished Benefits and Privileges.

And it is also ordered, that the said Land Boards may
in every such case provide not only for the Sons of
those Loyalists, as they arrive to full age, but for their
Daughters also of that age, or on their Marriage, assign
ing to each a Lot of Two Hundred Acres, more or less,
provided nevertheless that they respectively comply
with the general Regulations, and that it shall satis
factorily appear that there has been no default in the
due Cultivation and Improvement of the Lands already
assigned to the head of the family of which they are
members.

(Signed) J. WILLIAMS, C.C.

Through this proclamation many names were added to
the United Empire Loyalist list. Lieutenant - Governor
Simcoe was very anxious to increase the population of Upper

GRANTS TO LOYALISTS 41

Canada, therefore, on April 6, 1796, he issued a proclama
tion containing the following paragraph :

Whereas it appears by the minutes of the Council
of the late Province of Quebec, dated Monday the 9th
day of November, 1789, to have been the desire of His
Excellency, Lord Dorchester, the Governor General,
to put a mark of honour upon the families who adhered
to the Unity of the Empire and joined the Royal Standard
in America, before the Treaty of Separation in the year
1783, and for that purpose it was then ordered by His
Excellency in Council that the several Land Boards take
course in preserving a registry of the names of all persons
falling under the description aforementioned, to the
end that their posterity might be discriminated from
future settlers in the parish registers and rolls of the
Militia of their respective districts and other public
remembrances of the Province, as proper objects, by
their persevering in the fidelity and conduct so honour
able to their ancestors, for distinguished benefits and
privileges. But as such registry has not been generally
made, and as it is still necessary to ascertain the persons
and families who may have distinguished themselves
as abovementioned, &c., do hereby direct all persons
claiming to be confirmed by deed under seal of the Pro
vince of their several possessions, who adhered to the
Unity of the Empire and joined the Royal Standard in
America, before the Treaty of Separation in the year
1783, to ascertain the same upon oath before Magis
trates in the Michaelmas Quarter Sessions assembled,
now next ensuing the date of this Proclamation, that if
they neglect to ascertain according to the mode set forth
their claims to receive deeds without fee, they will not
be considered as entitled, in this respect, to the benefit
of having adhered.

Under this proclamation many names continued to be
added to the United Empire Loyalist list 1 even as late as 1824.

1 The most important list of United Empire Loyalists is that published in
Toronto, in 1885, in The Centennial of the Settlement of Upper Canada by the United
Empire Loyalists, 1784-1884. It contains 5985 names arranged in alphabetical
order. It gives the residence, corps and other information, but the copying and
proof-reading has been badly done, the long ' s ' where ' ss ' occurs in a name
frequently being written ' p.' A much better list could now be prepared if all
the original sources were carefully compared.

42 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

The land boards granted lands to many claimants, but the
boards were occasionally imposed upon, and several names
were expunged and others suspended. Some of these were
restored.

INDIAN IMMIGRATION

The Six Nations, or, as commonly called, the Iroquois,
remained loyal adherents of Great Britain throughout the
War of the Revolution. They took this stand chiefly through
the influence of Sir John Johnson and his brothers-in-law,
Daniel Claus and Guy Johnson. The most prominent chief
of the Six Nations and the greatest Indian of his time was
Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) , a pure-bred Mohawk who
had received a good English education and was in every way
a capable leader of his people and a person not inferior to any
of the leaders of whites, either on the field of battle or in the
council-chamber. He was held in high esteem by Haldi-
mand, and until the day of his death implicit confidence was
placed in him by the Indians and the English alike. When
provision was being made to place the active loyalists on
lands in what is now Ontario, Brant made application for a
tract of land that his people might continue to live under
the protection of the flag for which they had shown such a
strong attachment and had sacrificed so much. In 1784
some of the Mohawks, under the chief John Deserontya,
had settled along the Bay of Quinte, where they were granted
lands, which their descendants still occupy.

Many of the Mohawks and some others of the Six Nations
were living at Niagara at the close of the war and, like the
loyalists, were not allowed to go back to their old homes on
the Mohawk River in New York State. On Brant's applica
tion General Haldimand, on March 23, 1784, gave directions
for the purchase of lands from the Missisaugas of the tract
between the three lakes, Ontario, Erie, and Huron. Out of
this purchase a tract six miles wide on each side of the Ouse
or Grand River from its mouth to its source was to be re
served for the Mohawks and such other of the Six Nations
as wished to join them, the rest of the purchase to be reserved

IMMIGRATION IN THE EARLY YEARS 43

for loyalists. This grant was authorized by General Haldi-
mand on October 25, I784. 1

IMMIGRATION IN THE EARLY YEARS OF UPPER CANADA

When the Province of Quebec was divided by the Con
stitutional Act of 1791 into Upper Canada and Lower Canada
many persons continued to come into the upper province from
the United States. The various land boards tried to exercise
a due discrimination in allotting lands. Only persons of
good character and undoubted loyalty were given grants
after taking the oath of allegiance. When the first lieutenant-
governor, Colonel John Graves Simcoe, assumed office his
desire was to people Upper Canada with a loyal population.
He was confident that thousands then living in the United
States would rather live under the British flag than under
the Stars and Stripes ; consequently restrictions were relaxed
and free grants were given very promiscuously, the taking
of the oath of allegiance being the only test. Simcoe was
aided in this work by the British consuls at Philadelphia and
other places. The result was a great influx of settlers from
the United States, even from as far south as the Carolinas.
The lieutenant-governor had set his mind on building up
a powerful British colony in the territory that was left to
Britain after the peace of 1783. Shortly after Simcoe came
to Upper Canada war between the mother country and France
broke out, and this hindered immigration from the homeland.
An active immigration policy was instituted to overcome
the loss of population from Great Britain. Agents were dis
patched to the various States to advertise the advantages
of Upper Canada. This, coupled with dissatisfaction with
the government in several of the States, caused many to
seek new homes under the British flag. Simcoe carefully
supervised the class of persons admitted to Upper Canada,
but during the administratorship of Peter Russell lands
were granted to all applicants. Major-General Hunter, the

1 For the history of the relationship of the Six Nations Indians with the
British and their settlement in Canada, see ' Indian Affairs, 1763-1841,' in section
ii of this work.

44 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

latter's successor, said that Russell was so easily satisfied
that he ' would have granted lands to the devil and all his
family as good loyalists providing they were able to pay
the fees.'

In 1 793 Simcoe had to deviate somewhat from his original
policy of granting only two hundred acres to any one person.
To encourage the chief men of the province to make an
effort to bring in settlers, entire townships were granted to
individuals or associations. The township of Haldimand
was granted to Abel Spencer and Hazleton Spencer ; the
township of Murray to Jacob Watson, Stephen Graham,
John Barker, and Ebenezer Cooley ; the township of Hope to
Jonathan Walton, Abraham Walton, and Elias Smith ; the
township of Hamilton to Marshall Jones and others ; the
township of Bristol to Andrew Price, Samuel Jarvis, and
others ; the township of Cramahe to Silas Hodges and others ;
and the township of Clarke to Jasper Murdoch.

When Simcoe assumed the lieutenant-governorship he
wished to have a loyal corps to enforce his authority and
to protect his person. A battalion of about four hundred
and fifty officers and men was formed in England for
this purpose. It was called the Queen's Rangers, after the
corps Simcoe commanded during the Revolutionary War.
Many men and officers of the old corps were in the new
corps. This corps performed a variety of duties, such as
cutting roads and clearing land for the site of Toronto, the
projected seat of the government. In 1805 the Queen's
Rangers was disbanded and all its members settled in Upper
Canada.

The Rev. Samuel Peters sent from London, England,
fifty-one families consisting of loyalists and others. These
immigrants settled in the township of Pittsburgh and
adjacent to Kingston.

Many of the settlers on Yonge Street came from the
Northern States and held in contempt the officers of the
province, both civil and military. They brought in with
them their own school-teachers, and in their schools used
American books that ridiculed British institutions and
lauded the institutions of the United States. Indeed, this

IMMIGRATION IN THE EARLY YEARS 45

state of affairs existed in some parts of the province until
the middle of the nineteenth century.

Many settlers avowing republican principles settled along
Lake Erie west of Long Point, as well as in the district about
Newcastle along Lake Ontario. These people also brought
with them American teachers and American school-books.
Itinerant Methodist preachers, who were soon active among
them, propagated political doctrines intended to show the
superiority of the republican form of government over the
monarchical form. The lieutenant-governor and the loyal
ists were cognizant of this, but were powerless to stop it.
Had the government of the province been in less vigorous
hands than those of the United Empire Loyalists, whose love
for British connection was only exceeded by their hatred of
the United States, it would have been hard to predict the
outcome. Brock believed that these Americans were a
menace to the province, and events proved that he was not
in error. Hull's invasion of Upper Canada from Detroit
was the signal for an uprising in the London district of a
large party under Simon Watson, a surveyor, which raided
the country without opposition as far as the township of
Westminster. The capture of Detroit and the victory of
Queenston Heights put a stop to active demonstration in
favour of the United States. Hundreds of open sympathizers
with the enemy left the country, and others who were less
pronounced in their attitude deemed it wise to remain
neutral and respectful to the government. But this hatred
of British principles took a long time to die out. With
scarcely an exception these same districts about London
and the northern part of the county of York were the
recruiting grounds of the participants in the rebellion under
Mackenzie in 1837.

The War of 1812 was in a sense a blessing to Upper
Canada. It put a stop to the reckless granting of land to
persons holding republican views, and caused the authorities
to direct their efforts to secure settlers from England, Scot
land, and Ireland, upon whom no suspicion of disloyalty
could rest.

46 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
OR QUAKERS

The Quakers who settled in Upper Canada came from
Pennsylvania and New Jersey. They were non-combatants
during the War of the Revolution and had not suffered perse
cution like the active loyalists. After the war, however,
law and order were relaxed and taxes were oppressive. These
people became dissatisfied and longed for the old order of
government, and sought it in Canada. They settled princi
pally in the township of Whitchurch in the county of York.
The Quakers continued to come to the province for more
than twenty years after its formation. The later immi
grants came from Dutchess County in the State of New
York. These settled in Prince Edward County, the town
ship of Norwich in the London district, and in other town
ships in the county of York.

One of the most striking personages connected with the
Quakers was David Willson, who located in East Gwillim-
bury in the county of York. This man was the son of John
Willson, who emigrated to America from Carrickfergus in
the county of Antrim, Ireland, in 1770. John Willson pro
ceeded up the Hudson to Dutchess County, where David
was born. In 1801 David married and came to Canada and
settled among the Quakers on Yonge Street. Being of a
religious turn of mind he associated himself with the Quakers,
but he advocated opinions not in accordance with the
orthodox views of that sect, and he was expelled from the
society. He, with a few other families, established the
Church of the Children of Peace. At first these people
worshipped in private houses and in the schoolhouse, and
later in a building, erected for the purpose, called ' The Old
Meeting-house.' Their numbers increased, and between
1825 and 1830 they built in the village of Sharon an edifice
called ' The Temple,' the ruins of which may yet be seen.
The principal point of difference between them and the
Quakers was the introduction of music in their services.
They practised this art to such purpose that at one time the

SETTLEMENT OF MENNONITES AND TUNKERS 47

community had the finest band in the province. Some
members of the sect joined Mackenzie in his march on
Toronto, but for the most part they were steadfast loyalists.
Not a few of those who espoused the cause of the rebels
suffered imprisonment, among them being Willson's two
sons. Dissensions arose from time to time, through politics,
and after the death of the founder in 1866 the members
joined other denominations. Scarcely a single adherent of the
Church of the Children of Peace is now to be found in Ontario.

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE MENNONITES AND TUNKERS

Shortly after the War of the Revolution had ended, the
Mennonites and Tunkers, chiefly of Dutch and German
origin from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, came to Canada
and settled in the Niagara district along Black Creek and
Twenty Mile Creek. A little later another band migrated
to the county of York, settling chiefly in the rear of Markham
township and the south of Whitchurch township. Their
descendants still live there and are among the most efficient
farmers of the county.

By far the largest settlement of Mennonites in Upper
Canada was in what is now the county of Waterloo. In
1799 Joseph Schorg, or Sherk as he came to be called, and
Samuel Betzner came from Franklin County, Pennsylvania,
to Canada. Sherk stayed during the winter near Niagara
Falls, while Betzner went on to the vicinity of Ancaster.
Seeing no desirable place for settlement in these districts,
they pushed on about thirty miles and located on the Grand
River in the county of Waterloo. In the spring they moved
their families to their new home. They bought their farms
from Richard Beasley, who, along with James Wilson and
John B. Rosseau, had purchased 94,012 acres from Joseph
Brant. By the end of the year 1802 several families had
settled on this land, but they accidentally discovered that
the territory purchased from Brant was mortgaged for
$20,000. This put a stop to immigration to this district
for a time, and Beasley was unable to dispose of any more
of his land. He therefore proposed that the Mennonites

48 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

should form a company and buy the whole tract. The
settlers met in January 1804 and decided to send Joseph
Sherk and Samuel Bricker to their friends in Franklin County,
Pennsylvania, to make an effort to raise the money to lift
the mortgage. They failed in both Franklin and Cumber
land Counties, and Sherk returned to Canada in despair.
Bricker proceeded to Lancaster County, and a meeting of
his co-religionists was held at the house of John Eby. Strong
companies were being formed to buy land in Maryland and
Virginia for the poorer members of the sect, and the project
advanced by Bricker to buy land in Canada, ' the out-of-
the-world country/ and ruled by the ' Crown,' was not
favourably received until ' Old Hannes ' Eby arose and said
they should not look upon the matter in the light of a specu
lation, but as a Christian duty to help their brethren in
distress, and, if it yielded them no pecuniary profit, it would
be doing their duty, an act the Lord might in His own good
time bless in a way none of them thought of. Any one who
now views the many happy and prosperous homes of the
descendants of these Germans in Waterloo and surrounding
counties must conclude that the words of Hannes Eby were
prophetic. A joint stock company was organized. The
stock consisted of eight shares, one share being the maximum
and one-eighth share the minimum any stockholder could
possess. Daniel Erb was appointed Bricker's assistant, and
with $20,000, all in silver dollars in a strong box, these two
men travelled in a light buggy to Canada. By the help of
the Hon. William Dickson the affair was adjusted, and
Richard Beasley conveyed to Daniel Erb and Jacob Erb as
trustees 60,000 acres of land for $20,000 Canadian currency.
The tract was surveyed by Augustus Jones into lots of 448
acres each, and a map of the township of Waterloo was sent
to the stockholders in Pennsylvania. Each stockholder
drew his land by lot. Immigration now set in, and the glow
ing accounts brought back by those who visited the new
settlement induced numbers to emigrate to Upper Canada.
Live stock was driven all the way from Pennsylvania, thirty
days being taken to make the trip. Until the year 1835
families came into the township, and soon land was taken

5PADINA AVLN U El .

Between Oxford and College o)
I 5 64-.

m '.-

-''-

TORONTO

(l) SPADINA AVENUE BETWEEN OXFORD STREET AND COLLEGE STREET, 1864
(-2) THE FIRST POST-OFFICE IN TORONTO, 1792-1827

(3) THK FIRST ROMAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL IN TORONTO, BUILT 1825, AT THE SOUTH-WEST
CORNER OF JARVIS STREET AND HOSPITAL STREET

From the John Ross Robertson Collection in the Toronto Public Library

SETTLEMENT OF MENNONITES AND TUNKERS 49

up in the adjacent townships, some of the settlers coming
direct from Germany.

About 1816 Absalom Shade from Pennsylvania was
appointed agent for the Hon. William Dickson of Niagara,
who owned the township of North Dumfries. The first
settlers were Scots from New York State, who were after
wards joined by others who came direct from Scotland.
Many Germans also took up land in this township.

The township of Wilmot was settled by German noncon
formists Tunkers holding a doctrine similar to the Men-
nonites, but differing from the latter in dress and cut of hair
and beard. They came originally from Amsterdam, in 1822,
to New Orleans and travelled northward to Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania, under the guidance of their leader, Christian
Noffziger. Here Noffziger was advised to continue his
journey to Canada, where he arrived in August 1822, and
carefully examined Wilmot township and found it suitable
for settlement. Noffziger then went to York to interview
the lieutenant-governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, with a view
to securing this tract for his fellow-countrymen in the father
land who proposed emigrating. The lieutenant-governor
generously offered to give each family fifty acres free, with
the privilege of purchasing more at a low rate. Noffziger
then went to Europe and interviewed the British authorities
to make sure that the immigration was desirable. He was
assured that the lieutenant-governor's promise would be
carried out to the letter. As a result of Noffziger's work a
number of German immigrants arrived in Upper Canada in
1824 and 1826. These were soon followed by others from
Bavaria, Alsace, and other parts of Germany. The settle
ments were extended to other neighbouring townships in
the county of Perth, where they soon became prosperous.
The descendants of these people have extended greatly
beyond the original settlements. The large German popula
tion of the western peninsula had its beginning when Sherk
and Betzner plunged into the wilderness of Waterloo county
in 1800, and there formed a nucleus around which their
countrymen gathered from their old homes in the United
States and from the German states of Europe.

VOL. XVII n

5 o PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

THE MARKHAM SETTLEMENT

Shortly after the separation from Britain the different
States of the American Union made strenuous efforts to
direct the tide of immigration to their shores. They suc
ceeded in a marked degree in securing settlers from England,
Scotland, Ireland, and Germany. Patents for lands were
granted to favoured individuals, who proceeded to let the
land to tenants secured by them in Europe. This ' patroon '
system, which prevailed in the State of New York, fell into
disfavour when settlers found that they could own their lands
outright in Upper Canada by paying a small fee and doing
settlement duty.

In 1794 William Berczy brought out from Hamburg a
large number of German Protestants to locate on the Pulteney
domain in New York State. He soon learned of the easy
terms granted to settlers in Upper Canada, and journeyed
to York to investigate the situation. He was favourably
impressed and made application for land, and was granted
64,000 acres in the township of Markham. The whole
country was then a wilderness. The nearest place of any
size was Niagara. York had been marked out only in the
preceding summer ; and Yonge Street had been opened
northward for but a short distance. Berczy, however, was
resourceful and very energetic, and under his guidance sixty-
four families made their way across the Niagara River and
along the lake shore to York. They cut a wagon road from
York north to the southern border of the township of Mark-
ham. These immigrants were prepared for wilderness travel.
Their wagons were fitted with boxes made watertight, which
they could use as boats in an emergency. In these they
occasionally rowed across small streams with quite a large
load of supplies and settlers' effects. They took up their
farms along the banks of the Rouge, a river flowing into
Lake Ontario about twenty miles east of York. For many
years the route by this river and the lake was the easiest
method of getting to York. Berczy built saw and grist
mills on the river, and in a few years the settlement was a

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE EMIGRES 51

thriving one. From the beginning of the nineteenth century
this township has been looked upon as one of the wealthiest
in the whole province.

A great deal of money was expended by Berczy in getting
the settlement started, but the government considered that
not enough settlers had been brought in to warrant a grant
of the whole 64,000 acres, consequently that part not used
was thrown open for settlement. Berczy became involved
financially. According to his own statement he had spent
30,000 in locating the settlers under his charge, and he had
no means by which he could recoup himself. He left the
settlement in disgust and took up his residence in Montreal.
He considered that he had not been fairly dealt with, and for
several years urged his claims, in numerous letters, on the
government. 1 Unable to get justice, he sold his mills in
1805 to Captain Nolan of the yoth Regiment, then stationed
at York. Berczy returned to the United States, and died
in New York in 1813.

In October 1818 Berczy's son made application for a
grant of land, as heir of his father, and sought an adjust
ment of the claim his father had against the government.
The land council considered the whole question and ruled
that the son under the circumstances was entitled to 2400
acres of land. Sir Peregrine Maitland, in a dispatch to Lord
Bathurst of March I, 1819, requested that this grant might
be confirmed by the Prince Regent.

Undoubtedly Berczy was harshly dealt with. The in
justice was occasioned by a misunderstanding, and Maitland
had the rare faculty of distinguishing between the worthy and
the unworthy in just such cases as this. But the grant to the
son was a tardy reward for the sacrifices of the father.

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE EMIGRE'S

During the progress of the French Revolution and the
Reign of Terror thousands of the supporters of the Bourbons
left France and went to England. Many of these people

1 This correspondence is contained in two large volumes now in the possession
of the Dominion Archives, Ottawa.

52 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

were a charge upon public and private charity. To the
credit of England it can be said that no homeless exile ever
appealed to her in vain. It is estimated that by 1806 over
$9,000,000 had been expended on these exiles.

The clergy of France were particular objects of the hatred
of the revolutionists, and the Bishop of Quebec asked leave
of the British government to bring many of the exiled priests
to Canada, where they were much needed. This request
suggested to the government the idea of sending the emigres
to Canada as colonists. Consequently in 1792 three clergy
men and a naval officer went to Canada. They were well
received by Bishop Hubert and by Lieutenant-Governor
Simcoe. A township was set apart for them near the head
of Lake Ontario. Just when all arrangements had been
perfected, the Bourbon party gained new life and the republic
appeared to be near its end. The exiles hoped to return, and
England being nearer home than Canada, the idea of becoming
colonists or ministering to their fellow-countrymen in Canada
was abandoned. The order setting apart a township for
them in Upper Canada was rescinded. From time to time
several of the French refugees addressed letters to the British
government asking to be given lands in Canada and aid to
establish themselves there. To these appeals no attention
was paid.

In 1797, however, a memorial was presented to the British
government outlining a plan by which a French colony could
be sent to Canada. The plan was drawn up by Comte de
Puisaye, and its provisions were convincing enough to enlist
the active aid of the government.

Briefly, de Puisaye's plan was to use some of the fund
that was being expended for the refugees in England for
establishing them in Canada. In this way he expected that
the recipients would soon be self-supporting and a source
of strength to the British Empire. Land was to be allotted
to them and they were to be allowed their expenses for three
years, which included food, clothing, farm implements, and
seed-grain. Every paragraph of the memorial was carefully
worded and for the purpose of showing the government how
it was to gain at every point by following the plan outlined.

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE MIGRS 53

First, to ensure enough colonists, all those refusing to go to
Canada were to have no claim on the bounty of the British
government. The expense of the passage was to be a first
tax on the land. Land was to be cleared and buildings con
structed by a regiment of soldiers, whose pay should be a
charge on the military establishment of Canada. The officers
should be emigres under a colonel who should be head of the
colony under the governor. Not more than three hundred
or four hundred should be allowed to go the first year.

The proposer of this scheme was no ordinary man, and
in modern times could have maintained his fortune un
impaired by becoming a promoter. His career had been an
eventful one and full of action. Born of noble family in the
province of Perche in 1754, he was destined for the church,
but the profession of arms was too alluring, and at eighteen
he entered the regiment of Conti as lieutenant. Later he
purchased the colonelcy of the Hundred Swiss, a part of the
household troops of the king. In the States-General of 1789
he represented his native province of Perche. He voted
with the reformers who wished for a constitutional monarchy.
When the new constitution was completed he retired to his
estate and was placed at the head of the National Guards of
the district of Evreux. The Jacobin party gaining the upper
hand, de Puisaye raised an army in Normandy to ensure to the
king power to conduct the government constitutionally. On
July 13, 1793, the Norman army was routed and his chateau
and estate pillaged, and he was forced to fly to Brittany with a
price upon his head. By pretending to be of royal blood he
completely won the Breton peasants. By 1794 he had or
ganized an army in Brittany and was ready to strike a blow for
the Bourbons that would give them control of Western France.
To make success sure he resolved to go personally to England
to seek aid for his enterprise. His mission was successful,
and it was proposed that a descent upon Brittany should be
made by a force of British troops and emigres under Lord
Moira, which in conjunction with the army of Brittany would
sweep the republicans from the country. In de Puisaye's
absence, however, the Breton leaders signed a treaty with
the republic, and the work of years was lost.

54 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

In no way daunted, de Puisaye sent an insurgent leader,
de Saint-Tronc, to organize anew while he devoted himself
to holding the aid of the British. It was arranged that
Admiral Warren was to transport an army to Quiberon Bay.
Contrary winds delayed the transports and, after landing,
a divided command gave time to the republican leaders to
close round the invaders and destroy them. Six thousand
surrendered and 690 of these, all emigres, were executed.
De Puisaye escaped to the British vessels, but landed again
in Brittany, and never ceased to work for the Bourbon cause
until all was hopelessly lost by the western provinces laying
down their arms. De Puisaye was never included in the
pacification. He was advised to look after his personal
safety, but this he refused to do until he found the cause
hopeless and himself repudiated by the agents of the king.
Then he went to London and resigned his commission as
lieutenant-general in the Bourbon army. His restless dis
position and untiring activity must have something upon
which to work. It was at this time that his plan to trans
port emigres to Canada took shape.

In July 1798 a small party of forty-four was got together
and embarked at Portsmouth on the government packet
Betsy bound for Quebec, which city they reached on Octo
ber 7. They took a smaller vessel to Montreal, where they
were looked after by the assistant commissary-general for a few
days until bateaux could be got ready at Lachine to convey
them to Kingston. Here they arrived on October 29 and
were housed and given supplies from the government stores.
It was proposed that de Puisaye, de Saint-Tronc, and Mar-
chand, de Puisaye's servant, were to go on to York to prepare
for the reception of the emigrants there, as it was near this
place that they were to be allotted lands.

The personnel of the emigres differed vastly from that of
an ordinary body of emigrants, and a brief description of a
few of the most distinguished should be of interest. Among
the company were four that fought at Quiberon : de Saint-
Tronc, Comte de Chalus, the Marquis de Sainte-Aulaire, and
Quetton St George.

The most distinguished by birth, family, and education

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE EMIGRES 55

was de Beaupoil, the Marquis de Sainte-Aulaire. He had
staked everything for the Bourbon cause, but had to leave
the country. In England he kept in touch with French
affairs and was of some material use to Britain in warning
her of French designs on India. The marquise and their
son accompanied the marquis, besides a cousin, Gui de
Beaupoil, who had been a page at the court of Marie
Antoinette. The marquis was to be military head of the
colony ; but a few weeks at Kingston damped his ardour
for pioneer life in Upper Canada, and he sought to return
to England. By the aid of the Hon. Richard Cartwright,
the leading merchant of Kingston, passports for the marquis
and his family and Coster de St Victor were made out and
they were sent to Montreal. The marquis, Gui de Beaupoil,
and St Victor in the fall of 1799 took passage for England.
The marquise stayed behind with her son and later joined
them in England. The marquis took service with Russia
in 1806 and fought against France. In 1817 he returned to
.his native country and was made a field-marshal the next
year. St Victor went to Paris, plotted against Napoleon,
was suspected, and fled to England. Returning, he entered
into plots with Pichegru and others, was arrested, tried and
condemned, and guillotined on June 25, 1804.

The Comte de Chalus and his brother, Vicomte de Chalus,
were Bourbon enthusiasts from Maine. They received
grants of land, but sold them and returned home. De Saint-
Tronc and Marzeul, along with many others, after getting
their grants sold them and left the country. Quetton St
George became a trader with the Indians and amassed great
wealth. It was he who bought most of the land from the
other emigres. He had the friendship of the chief men of
Upper Canada. He returned to France and married, but never
came back to North America. His only son came to Canada
about 1847 to look after his father's estate, which in 1831
amounted to 26,000 acres of land. In his father's absence
it was looked after by William Warren Baldwin. The son
took up his residence on Yonge Street about twenty miles
north of Toronto, where the site of his estate may now be
recognized by a long avenue of closely planted pine trees.

56 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

Peter Russell, as president of the council, was the adminis
trator of the government of Upper Canada, and from corre
spondence with the home secretary and others he learned
that the British government was behind de Puisaye's enter
prise. Some of the leading men were opposed to settling the
emigres in a body, particularly under the leaders they had.

When de Puisaye arrived at York on November 18 the
council appropriated the townships of Uxbridge, Gwillimbury,
part of Whitchurch, and a township to the north of Whitby
not yet named. De Puisaye was to have five thousand acres
and the others according to rank, the same as were granted to
the disbanded regiments that took part in the Revolutionary
War. Titles were not to be granted until after the expira
tion of seven years. The council was divided upon the
proposed question of giving the settlement a military char
acter, but Russell had a plan by which the soldiers would
be divided among the king's posts.

After some weeks' stay in York de Puisaye requested
that twenty-two lots of two hundred acres each on Yonge
Street should be given him for the nucleus of a town. The
conditions were that each patentee would build a house and
occupy it within a year and that he would clear and fence five
acres of land and open a road. By January 4 the survey had
been finished, and by February 14 de Puisaye with sixteen
others had erected houses, and later a church and parsonage.
De Puisaye called the new town Windham after the secretary
of war, who had shown such marked respect for his plan and
through whose influence the emigres had been so kindly
treated by the officials at York. By spring several more of
those at Kingston had joined the colony, but the servants
had deserted.

Less than one year of work trying to carve out a home in
the wilderness had thoroughly disgusted most of the members
of the little colony, and as soon as possible they sought other
means of gaining a livelihood, and in a short time Windham
was deserted. Several sold their claims and went home to
France. De Puisaye, the only one with ready money, began
to look out for a more desirable situation for a town and
a place for other colonists he expected from England. He

. _M rr^uu^

.

' -

r f * **

v!)

TORONTO

(1) THE FIRST COURT-HOUSE, BUILT l8lO, ON THE NORTH SIDE OF WEST RICHMOND STREET

WHERE THE CONFEDERATION LIFE BUILDINd NOW STANDS

(2) THE NORTH SIDE OF FRONT STREET EAST, 1860

(3) THE NORTH SIDE OF KING STREET WEST FROM TORONTO STREET TO CHURCH STREET, 1834

From f he John Ross Robertson Collection in the Toronto Public Library

ST, JOHN FISHFR CO! f.FGF ! IRRARY

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE MIGRS 57

tried to buy land from the Indians, but without success,
because the executive council would not concede that Brant,
their leader, had the right to sell lands. After staying with
Brant at the head of Lake Ontario for some months, he visited
Niagara, and was so pleased with the situation that he pur
chased a house and three hundred acres along the Niagara
River about three miles from its mouth. He rebuilt the
house, fitted it up lavishly with furniture, carpets, mirrors,
and other accessories purchased in Europe. The grounds
were laid out, shrubs and trees were planted, stables and
barns built, and all manner of live stock purchased, all at
an expenditure in improvements of about 5400. Like many
another enthusiast, he found that little encouragement was
given him. Colonists did not arrive as he expected, and he
had, therefore, reluctantly to give up his project. In May
1802 he, Mrs Smithers, his housekeeper, whom he after
wards married, and de Saint-Tronc left for England by way
of New York. For the first few years after his return to
the Old World he was engaged in writing his memoirs in
five volumes, chiefly to vindicate his character in connection
with the Quiberon affair. He died near Hammersmith in
England, December 13, 1827.

De Puisaye's fate was similar to that of Berczy, Selkirk,
MacNab, and others who devoted their talents and their
fortunes to try to colonize Upper Canada. The govern
ment officials of the day were incapable of discerning the
value of such men to the infant province. Most of the
officials profited personally from the expenditures of these
promoters, and the government, which the officials con
trolled, in many instances dealt unfairly with them. In
nearly every case, too, the homeless emigrants they helped
on the way to independence turned against their benefactors
in the hour of their adversity.

The story of de Puisaye is given at length because it
furnishes a picture of the tribulations of the early pioneers,
and not for any permanent result his efforts at colonization
had upon the settling of a portion of Upper Canada.

58 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

THE TALBOT SETTLEMENT

In the year 1790 there landed at Quebec a young man,
nineteen years of age, to join the 24th Regiment as lieu
tenant. In June 1792 Colonel Simcoe, recently appointed to
the lieutenant-governorship of the new province of Upper
Canada, left Quebec for the seat of his government. As one
of his staff he selected the experienced and dashing young
lieutenant of the 24th Regiment. The party reached Kings
ton on July I, and leaving there on the 24th of the month
they reached the mouth of the Niagara on the 26th. This
was the first introduction of Thomas Talbot, our young aide,
to a province that was to be the scene of his activities
for fifty years. The career of Thomas Talbot is so distin
guished, so remarkable, and so full of romance, and is so
closely interwoven with the settlement, progress, and develop
ment of Upper Canada that one feels a desire to know every
little detail of his private, as well as of his public, life.

The Talbots were an ancient and honourable family, one,
Richard de Talbot, being a baron of the Conqueror. When
Henry II conquered Ireland a grandson of this de Talbot
received from the king a grant of the barony and castle of
Malahide, about nine miles from Dublin. If we were to
read closely the history of the kings of England down to the
present, we would find a Talbot near each monarch. So
noticeable is this fact that it has been said : ' Since William
the Bastard died there has been no day when the adhesion
of the head of the Talbots has not been distinctly important
to the acting government of England.'

Thomas Talbot was born in the old castle of Malahide
on July 19, 1771. He was destined, in the wilderness of
Upper Canada, to play an important part in the history
of the British Empire. Seemingly by intuition he could
distinguish a loyal from a disloyal applicant for land, and
when the hour of trial came to Canada, Talbot and his
settlers were factors in repelling invasion during the War
of 1812 and crushing rebellion of disloyal settlers in 1837.
Although his work was less spectacular and its scene farther

THE TALBOT SETTLEMENT 59

removed from the radiance of the throne than that of his
distinguished forbears, perhaps it was as necessary as theirs
for the preservation of the Empire.

Like all young scions of nobility, Thomas Talbot entered
the army early in life, becoming an ensign at twelve and a
lieutenant on half-pay a few months later. From then until
his sixteenth year he attended school. After leaving school
he was on the active list of the 24th Regiment as aide
to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and associated with him
was Arthur Wellesley, better known later as the Duke of
Wellington, who was a year or two Talbot 's senior. The
friendship so early formed continued throughout their long
lives. During Talbot's last visit to England he called on the
great duke at Apsley House, and the two octogenarians no
doubt discussed pioneer life in far-off Canada.

When Talbot was on the staff of Simcoe he was entrusted
with important diplomatic business at Philadelphia and he
attended two Indian councils on the Miami. It is said that
he became enamoured with life amid the beautiful forests
and waterways of Upper Canada by reading Charlevoix'
history, particularly that portion describing the ' Paradise
of the Hurons.' It is more probable, however, that the lure
of the forest took hold of him during his various trips with
Simcoe to Detroit through the western peninsula. On these
trips he revelled in the beauties of the wilderness and was in
his element when pitching the tent or cooking the meals,
work which no remonstrance from his chief could make him
leave to the servants of the party. There is no doubt that
on one of these journeys he formed the determination to
seek in Upper Canada a grant of land such as was given
to officers of his rank. In June 1794 he left Upper Canada
on being summoned to join the 85th Foot, as major. In
January 1796 he was promoted to the lieutenant-colonelcy
of the 5th Foot. He took part in the Duke of York's ill-
fated expedition in the Netherlands and was in garrison at
Gibraltar for a time. By the end of 1800 the active service
which his nature craved seemed at an end, and on Christmas
Day of that year, to the amazement of hosts of his military
associates, he sold out and withdrew from the army. There

60 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

was much speculation as to the cause of his unusual action.
Disappointment in love and the infatuation of the king's
daughter for the gay and handsome officer were reasons that
gossip gave for so unheard of an action. But he was tired
of conventional life. He had seen much of the frivolous
and artificial life of society at the time, and, perhaps, was on
the verge of being swept into its vortex and lost. The soft
and low murmuring of the pines was still in his ears. He
would go to Upper Canada, away from temptation, and build
up a great estate and devote his wealth and his talents
towards inducing hundreds of needy ones of the British Isles
to come to the province, where they might become indepen
dent and happy subjects of their sovereign. In this he was,
no doubt, influenced by the enthusiasm of Simcoe.

Talbot returned to Canada early in 1801 expecting to
get a township for himself on which he might place settlers.
Simcoe had promised him land, but the warrants had not
been made out and the regulations regarding land grants had
undergone change since his previous visit. Fees and settle
ment duties were required, and to evade these he sought
the aid of the Duke of Cumberland. It may be observed,
however, that Peter Russell and the other members of the
executive council were too busy granting lands to themselves
to pay much attention to Talbot. The Babys were granted
a large part of the township of Yarmouth, Talbot's original
selection. Talbot deserves praise for evading the payment
of fees when he found that none were paid for large grants
given to friends of the executive. He wished the duke to
ask the king for a grant of a township and then to transfer
the grant to him. As a royal patent it would be exempt
from fees. The duke turned the matter over to his brother
the Duke of Kent, who wrote to Lord Hobart, colonial
secretary, a strong letter in Talbot's favour.

Talbot on his arrival in Upper Canada went to his
favourite location on the shore of Lake Erie near the present
Port Stanley and began a clearing. It is not known how
long he remained here, but, becoming impatient at not re
ceiving a grant, he returned to London in October 1802.
Here he busied himself giving information to the govern-

THE TALBOT SETTLEMENT 61

ment regarding the soil, climate, and brilliant prospects of the
Lake Erie district. He wished to direct emigration towards
Canada rather than to the States. He likewise pointed out
to the authorities the danger to Canada from the character
of the settlers then coming in from the United States.

Simcoe, now in London, on February n wrote to the
colonial secretary strongly pressing Talbot's claim for five
thousand acres. This appeal was successful, and in four days
Talbot was the bearer of a letter from Lord Hobart to Lieu-
tenant-Governor Hunter granting him five thousand acres in
Yarmouth township. If this tract were already allotted, he
was to have his grant in any other township he might select.
As Yarmouth South had been granted to the Babys, Talbot
chose Dunwich and at a later date Aldborough. In the
township of Dunwich, at the mouth of a little stream, he
landed with four helpers on May 21, 1803. Climbing the
steep bank he selected a beautiful elevation for his home and
with his own hands felled the first tree. Thus was begun
the Talbot settlement. In the following year carpenters were
brought from Niagara, and houses and outbuildings were
erected. Here he spent the rest of his days, except for
occasional visits to York (Toronto), Quebec and Europe, and
for a short period of incapacity before his death. Here he
performed all the duties of his household cut wood, built
fires, baked the bread, and cooked for the men clearing his
land. Here he received the chief men, the finest minds of
the province. Here he welcomed distinguished travellers
and writers, titled aristocrats, noted churchmen, and pro
vincial governors. Some of these were Dr Howison, Mrs
Jameson, Isaac Brock, Francis Gore, the Duke of Richmond,
Lord Taunton, Lord Wharncliffe, Sir Peregrine Mainland,
Sir John Colborne, Sir George Arthur, Lord Aylmer, Chief
Justice Sir John Beverley Robinson, the Hon. Peter Robinson,
the Earl of Derby, his brothers Richard Talbot, afterwards
Lord Talbot, and William Talbot, his nephews Lord
Airey, and Julius and John Airey, Dr Dunlop, Bishops
Stuart and Strachan, Lady Emeline Stuart-Wortley, and her
daughter, afterwards Lady Victoria Welby, and hosts of
others of lesser note. All who have written of Talbot and

62 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

his settlement have borne testimony to the remarkable work
he accomplished in peopling the district with a large popu
lation that in a few years became loyal and prosperous
farmers willing to extend the welcome hand to immigrants
and help them on the road to independence. No other
settlement had made such progress. It must be remem
bered that while he was granted special privileges by the
British government the result justified its confidence. Others
had been granted similar favours, but they failed to fulfil
their contracts and lost their grants. The townships of Oxford,
Townsend, and Burford were granted to persons who had the
same opportunity as Talbot, but failed.

For every settler Talbot placed on fifty acres of land he
was to receive two hundred acres for himself. His policy
was to have permanent settlers and a compact settlement.
No clergy reserves were allotted in the townships under his
charge. No certificates for patents were to be given to
settlers unless they had cleared a strip one hundred feet
wide across their lot along the road, built a house at least
fifteen feet by twenty feet, and resided on their lots for five
years. These exactions might retard the settlement at first,
but would prevent speculation and would ultimately make
the settlement more permanent. By 1809 the first settlers
appeared, and the system of road making inaugurated by
Talbot was an inducement for settlers to come in. Settle
ment went on slowly and was hindered by the three years
of war. The raiding Americans in 1814 gave his project a
set-back by burning his mills. By 1820 he informed Sir
Peregrine Maitland that he had completed the location on
the lands allotted to him. He did his work so well that
the whole of the south-western part of the province was
placed under his charge by the provincial government. This
enabled him to complete the Talbot road extending from
Delhi to Sandwich and from Port Talbot to London.

By the year 1826 Talbot had expended all his wealth in
building roads and making the district desirable for settlers.
True, he held about sixty-five thousand acres of land, but
much of it was unproductive and his agricultural experi
ments failed to bring in an adequate return ; hence he wrote

THE TALBOT SETTLEMENT 63

to Lord Bathurst that he had placed on lands about twenty
thousand persons without expense to the government, but
at a cost of 20,000 to himself. This appeal resulted
in getting him a remuneration of 400 per year for the
services he continued to render in locating settlers. Talbot
has been criticized for having made a fortune out of lands,
but his recompense was not at all excessive for the great
service he performed for Upper Canada in the early days of
her history. Nearly all the settlers he placed on land were
his staunch friends to the last. A few agitators, ungrateful
for the help he gave them when they arrived in the settle
ment penniless, desired to rob him of the lands he held.
According to a return laid before the house of assembly in
1836 we learn that 518,000 acres, situated in twenty-eight
townships, had at one time or another been placed at his
disposal. In 1831 the settlers he had been influential in
locating were estimated at forty thousand.

The townships of Dunwich, Aldborough, the north of
Yarmouth, and South Dorchester were settled principally by
Scottish Highlanders, the Talbot road east and including
the north branch into Southwold by people from the United
States, Southern England, and an overflow from the Long
Point settlement and the Niagara district. The south of
Yarmouth was settled by Quakers from Pennsylvania and
New Jersey, but not under the auspices of Talbot. Many
of these took an active part in the rebellion of 1837, but were
captured and held in check by the loyal Talbot settlers.
Malahide was occupied by settlers from New York State,
Long Point, and Nova Scotia.

Not much remains to be said of the ' Father of the Talbot
Settlement.' Although appointed a member of the legis
lative council of the province he seldom attended its sessions.
He was a tory of the old school, honest, upright, benevolent,
and an uncompromising opponent of cant. He was often
opposed to the actions and methods of both political parties,
hence he frequently found it necessary to ignore the govern
ment of the province and get authority for his actions from
the home government. His unflinching loyalty to his sove
reign made him the inexorable opponent of the party associated

64 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

with the rebellion. He delivered but one political speech,
and that was in 1832 at St Thomas. When William Lyon
Mackenzie and his followers rose in arms, he called together
his settlers and in scathing terms denounced rebellion.
The militia in his district overawed any centres of incipient
risings. For this many sympathizers with reform were
thankful when they saw the collapse of the Mackenzie fiasco
and the odium attached to the active rebels.

Near the close of his eventful life he wished to leave his
estate to some relative who would maintain the dignity of
the ancestral Talbot line in the New World. Julius Airey,
son of his sister Margaret, was invited to visit his uncle.
The surroundings were not to the liking of a young man
brought up in the polished society of the old land. No
visions of a vast inheritance could make up for the dreary
monotony of life at Port Talbot. After a year he returned
home. Richard Airey, brother of Julius, had visited his
uncle when secretary to Lord Aylmer, Governor of Canada.
Afterwards, in 1837, he was stationed at St Thomas with
his regiment, the 34th, of which he was lieutenant-colonel.
When military secretary to the Horse Guards Colonel Airey
decided to come to Canada with his family and reside at
Port Talbot and care for his aged uncle. Instead of humour
ing the old man, the Aireys sought to bend him to their way
of living. Becoming dissatisfied, Colonel Talbot resolved
to spend the rest of his days in England. Accordingly, he
conveyed to Colonel Airey the Port Talbot estate of one
thousand three hundred acres and all his lands in Aldborough.
In less than a year Colonel Airey returned to his military
duties in London after renting Port Talbot. He served as
quartermaster-general during the Crimean War and was after
wards elevated to the peerage.

Colonel Talbot had scarcely set out for the old land when
he was taken seriously ill, but to the surprise of all he rallied,
and after spending nearly a year in England, he returned to
Canada, to live in a small room in the house of the widow of
his old and faithful servant Jeffrey Hunter, within sight of
the home he had occupied for nearly fifty years, now in the
possession of strangers. Tiring of this, he went to London,

THE GLENGARRY SETTLEMENT 65

Ontario, to live with George MacBeth, his helpmate and com
panion for some years and who accompanied him to England
on his last two trips. Here he died on February 5, 1853, be
queathing the whole of his estate to MacBeth.

His remains were placed in the graveyard at Port Talbot,
where rested hundreds whom he had helped on the way to
a competency in the days when he ruled the Talbot settle
ment with a kindly and benevolent despotism. His grave
is marked by a plain slab bearing the inscription : ' The
Honourable Thomas Talbot, Founder of the Talbot Settle
ment.'

THE GLENGARRY SETTLEMENT

The front township of the county of Glengarry and
Cornwall in the county of Stormont were settled in 1784 by
the disbanded soldiers of the King's Royal Regiment of New
York. These soldiers were Scotsmen who had emigrated,
just before the War of the Revolution, to the colony of New
York and had settled near Johnstown, the home of Sir
William Johnson.

The back townships of Lochiel, Kenyon, Roxborough, and
Finch were at the beginning of the nineteenth century a
wilderness. It was quite natural that these loyal Scots
men would induce their friends in Scotland who thought
of emigrating to locate beside them in the British colony
of Canada. The first emigration was in 1786, when the
Rev. Alexander Macdonell (Scotus) came to Glengarry with
five hundred settlers, principally of his kinsmen from the
estate of Knoydart in Glengarry, Scotland. This band left
Greenock on board the ship M c Donald, Captain Robert
Stevenson, arrived at Quebec on September 7, 1786, and
immediately proceeded to the Glengarry settlement. Mac
donell was one of the earliest priests to minister to his co
religionists in Glengarry and Stormont. He founded the
parish of St Raphael, the first in Glengarry, and, indeed,
in Upper Canada, and here he built the first church, known
as the ' Blue Chapel.' This edifice was succeeded by the
present beautiful church erected by his successor and name-

VOL. XVII E

66 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

sake, Alexander Macdonell, afterwards better known as
Bishop Macdonell.

In 1792 Macdonell of Greenfield emigrated to Glengarry
with a number of his clan. He was married to a sister of
Colonel John Macdonell of Aberchalder, who was the first
speaker of the first legislature of Upper Canada. Each year
brought out settlers from other clans to make their homes
in Glengarry. Among them were a number of Camerons,
Macmillans, M c Phersons, M c Leods and others who came
out in 1796. The northern part of the township of Lancaster
was cut off from it in 1816 and named Lochiel after the
celebrated chieftain of the Camerons. Nearly every Scottish
clan was represented in Glengarry before the close of the
eighteenth century.

The last emigration of Scotsmen on a large scale took
place in 1803, under the auspices of the Rev. Alexander
Macdonell, the first Roman Catholic bishop of Upper Canada.
In 1792 this well-known prelate, when a young missionary
on the borders of Inverness and Perth, affected by the
distress of his countrymen and hearing that an emigrant
vessel which had sailed from the island of Barra, one of the
Hebrides, had in a wrecked condition put into Greenock,
where she had landed her passengers in a most helpless and
destitute state, went to Glasgow to plead in their behalf.
Here Macdonell secured an introduction to the professors of
Glasgow University and the leading manufacturers of the city,
and proposed that the latter should take into their employ
ment the shipwrecked emigrants and the Highlanders lately
turned off their farms. This they promised to do, but there
was great difficulty in getting the Highlanders satisfactory
situations, chiefly because they were ignorant of the English
language and because a majority of them were of the Roman
Catholic religion. The latter obstacle was due to the
inimical attitude of the lower orders of the people of Glasgow
towards the Roman Catholics on account of the Lord George
Gordon riots. The energetic priest succeeded in allaying the
fears of the manufacturers, and after a few months' residence
in Glasgow managed to procure employment for upwards
of six hundred distressed Highlanders. After two years of

THE GLENGARRY SETTLEMENT 67

employment the doctrines of the French revolutionists began
to take hold of the people of Great Britain. The chief
sympathizers with the Revolution were in the manufacturing
districts. To check the spread of the doctrine war was
declared against France. This had the effect of reducing
exports of manufactured goods to France, and consequently
the factories closed and the Highlanders were again out of
employment.

At this juncture the young priest conceived the idea of
raising a Roman Catholic corps in His Majesty's service
with Macdonell of Glengarry as colonel. In 1794, at a
large meeting at Fort Augustus, an address was drawn up
and the Chief Macdonell and John Fletcher of Dundas went
to London to present it to the king, who graciously received
it. A letter of service was issued authorizing the raising
of the first Glengarry Fencible Regiment as a Roman Catholic
corps, the first since the Reformation. The Rev. Alexander
Macdonell, contrary to the then existing law, was gazetted
as chaplain. Four or five Scottish regiments refused to
extend their services to England and mutinied when ordered
to march. The Glengarry Fencibles through their chaplain
offered to extend their services to England or Ireland or even
to Jersey or Guernsey. This offer was accepted by the
government. From 1795 to the summer of 1798 they were
in Guernsey, but rebellion having broken out in Ireland in
the latter year the regiment was ordered to that unhappy
country. After serving in Ireland to the eminent satisfac
tion of the government, application was made for the augmen
tation of the regiment, but the Peace of Amiens in 1802
closed the war and the regiment was disbanded. Its members
were soon as destitute as they had been before its enrol
ment, and their chaplain proceeded to London to seek aid
in sending the disbanded soldiers to Upper Canada. Here
the young missionary was received with honour by the Duke
of York and the premier, Addington, who proposed to send
the people to Trinidad. This offer was refused by Macdonell,
as was also one to send them to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick
or Sault Ste Marie. He persisted in his intention to take
his people to Upper Canada, and the secretary of state for

68 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

the Colonies, Lord Hobart, addressed the following letter to
Lieutenant-General Hunter, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper
Canada :

DOWNING STREET, ist March, 1803.

SIR, A body of Highlanders, mostly Macdonells,
and partly disbanded soldiers of the Glengarry Fencible
Regiment, with their families and immediate connec
tions, are upon the point of quitting their present place
of abode, with the design of following into Upper Canada
some of their relatives who have already established
themselves in that Province.

The merit and services of the Regiment in which a
proportion of these people have served, give them strong
claims to any mark of favour and consideration which
can consistently be extended to them ; and with the
encouragement usually afforded in the Province they
would no doubt prove as valuable settlers as their con
nections now residing in the District of Glengarry, of
whose industry and general good conduct very favour
able representations have been received here.

Government has been apprised of the situation and
disposition of the families before described by Mr
Macdonell, one of the Ministers of their Church and
formerly Chaplain to the Glengarry Regiment, who
possesses considerable influence with the whole body.

He has undertaken, in the event of their absolute
determination to carry into execution their plan of
departure, to embark with them and direct their course
to Canada.

In case of their arrival within your Government, I am
commanded by His Majesty to authorize you to grant,
in the usual manner, a tract of the unappropriated
Crown lands in any part of the Province where they
may wish to fix, in the proportion of twelve hundred
acres to Mr Macdonell and two hundred acres to every
family he may introduce into the Colony. I have the
honour to be, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

HOBART.

In the same year that the Glengarry Fencibles arrived
in the St Lawrence, a shipload of one thousand one hundred
souls, chiefly from Glenelg and Kintail, joined their friends
in Upper Canada. To enumerate the prominent men that

SETTLEMENT OF TOWNSHIP OF DUMFRIES 69

this emigration gave to Canada would be but to quote the
names of the gallant officers and men that helped to keep
Canada British in the War of 1812. Red George Macdonell,
the hero of Ogdensburg and Chateauguay, is a notable
example. Colonel John Macdonell, aide-de-camp to Sir
Isaac Brock, member for Glengarry in 1812, was with his
chief at the capture of Detroit, where he drew up the terms
of capitulation. He was killed at the battle of Queenston
Heights, and his body reposes with that of Brock under the
monument erected on Queenston Heights in honour of the
* Hero of Upper Canada/ Two regiments were recruited
in Glengarry at the beginning of the War of 1812, the Glen
garry Light Infantry and the Canadian Fencibles. The
moving spirit in the work was the Rev. Alexander Macdonell,
who was appointed their chaplain. The gallantry of the
Glengarry men on all occasions is ably set forth by the
historians of the war. Later, in the Rebellion of 1837, their
sons were the backbone of the defence of the province.

The influx of so many loyal adherents of the crown to
Canada has had a marked effect upon the history of the
country. War was not the only occupation in which they
served with honour. In the legislative halls they were fore
most in advocating just and good laws for the government
of the province.

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWNSHIP OF DUMFRIES

The township of Dumfries was originally part of the land
set apart by Great Britain for the Six Nations Indians. On
February 5, 1798, Joseph Brant sold Block No. I, contain
ing 94,305 acres, to Philip Stedman for 8841. This block
was afterwards known as the township of Dumfries. The
government sanctioned the sale. Stedman died without
direct heirs shortly after receiving the deed from the crown.
In 1811 the Hon. Thomas Clarke purchased the land from
Stedman's sister and mortgaged it to the Indian Trustees for
the original purchase-price. Clarke sold the lands in 1816
to William Dickson for 15,000 and the assumption of the
mortgage.

70 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

Dickson was born in Dumfries, Scotland, in 1769 and
came to Canada in 1792, settling in the Niagara district,
where he practised law. During the War of 1812 he was
taken prisoner and sent to Greenbush in New York, but was
subsequently released on parole. He was challenged to a
duel by a fellow-lawyer and former friend named Weekes. 1
Dickson accepted the challenge, and the two men met behind
the American Fort Niagara. Weekes was killed at the first
exchange of shots. It appears that Dickson and Weekes
were engaged as counsel on the same side of a case at the
assizes at Niagara. Weekes in his address to the jury com
mented very severely on the conduct of Lieutenant-Governor
Simcoe. At the conclusion of this address Dickson arose
and addressed the court, saying that although on the same
side of the case as Weekes he disapproved of the language
used in reference to the late lieutenant-governor. As a
result of Dickson 's action Weekes sent him a challenge to a
duel that, as stated above, ended fatally for the challenger.

In 1816 Dickson was appointed a legislative councillor
and continued to take a prominent part in all affairs that
pertained to the welfare of the province. In 1837 he col
lected the militia of Niagara district and took them by
steamer to Toronto in time to assist in the defeat of the
rebels under Mackenzie at Montgomery's Tavern. He lived
until February 19, 1846.

After the purchase of Dumfries William Dickson pro
posed to build mills somewhere near the centre of his land
and to invite settlers to purchase lots adjoining this nucleus
of the town. In seeking for an agent to look after his affairs
in Dumfries he met a young man named Absalom Shade, a
native of Pennsylvania, but then a resident of Buffalo, who
was an unsuccessful tenderer for the building of the court
house at Niagara. Dickson offered Shade the position of
agent of his enterprises in Dumfries. Shade agreed to look
over the ground, and both he and his employer set out on
horseback by the road leading to the Grand River near where
Paris is now situated. Here they obtained the services of an
Indian guide, who took them northward along the bank of

1 See section n, p. 185.

THE SELKIRK SETTLEMENT 71

the river. When they arrived at the present site of Gait
they came to the conclusion that there was sufficient water-
power for milling purposes in the creek that here joins the
Grand. Dickson left for Flamboro, but Shade stayed a
few days longer to look thoroughly over the district. He
found that some of the German settlers of Waterloo had
moved over into Dumfries, but no site for a mill and a town
appeared so suitable as the one first selected. Shade was a
man of unusual energy and determination, very necessary
characteristics in a pioneer to whom is entrusted the great
and varied work of building a mill, laying out a town, and
locating settlers in a wilderness. He, however, was equal
to the task, and in 1816 employed men to clear the land and
build a house and a mill. By the end of 1817 there were
thirty-eight families settled in the township, chiefly Scots
men who had lived some time in Genesee County, New York.

THE SELKIRK SETTLEMENT

The name of Lord Selkirk is usually associated with the
settlement on the Red River in and about the site of the
present city of Winnipeg. 1 It is not generally known that
one of his emigration schemes was to bring settlers to Upper
Canada. In 1802 he applied to the British government for
a grant of land near the present town of Sault Ste Marie.
An agent was actually sent out to examine the site, but he
was refused the grant because it was outside the jurisdic
tion of the province. The noble lord had various schemes
of settlement. He obtained a grant of land in Prince Edward
Island and in 1803 brought out about eight hundred High
landers to occupy it.

In the next year he brought out one hundred and eleven
Highlanders to Upper Canada and located them on a tract of
land, Baldoon, consisting of nine hundred and fifty acres along
Lake St Clair near the mouth of Bear Creek. The colonists
came from Tobermory, island of Mull, Scotland. On account
of the war with France the final sailing was delayed until
May 1804. They crossed the ocean in the ship Oughton

1 See ' The Red River Settlement,' section x.

72 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

of Greenock and ascended the St Lawrence to Kingston in
bateaux. At Kingston they took ship for Queenston and
portaged to a safe place above Niagara Falls, and again took
bateaux to Amherstburg and located on their land in Sep
tember. The Baldoon settlement did not succeed, partly on
account of the low nature of the land. Forty-two of the
settlers died the first year and others removed to more favour
able locations among their countrymen. In 1812 the settle
ment was raided by Hull during his invasion of Upper Canada,
and a good deal of the stock of the settlers was taken. Many
of the merino sheep, one thousand in number, furnished
by Selkirk to the settlers, were driven to Detroit to supply
Hull's army with food. These settlers were raided again in
1813 by the Americans under M c Arthur. By 1817 only
nine or ten families remained on the site of the original
settlement, and on September 17, 1818, Selkirk sold Baldoon
to John MacNab, a Hudson's Bay trader.

The hardships encountered by the settlers on the Red
River caused them to seek another location nearer civiliza
tion than their new home. A number of families left the
Red River Settlement for Upper Canada by the old North-
West route. The greater number settled in the town
ships of East and West Gwillimbury near the shores of Lake
Simcoe. A few joined their relatives in the townships of
Markham and Aldborough.

IMMIGRATION AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS

Several causes contributed to the great influx of settlers
to Upper Canada from about 1816 or 1817 to 1840. The
War of 1812 with the United States brought Upper Canada
to the attention of the British people. The officers and men
of the various regiments, when they reached their homes in
the British Isles, spoke favourably of the climate and re
sources of the province. The debates on the proposed
union of the Canadas in the British parliament in 1822 and
1823 brought the upper province still further into public
notice.

The close of the long war with France was the cause of a

TORONTO

(1) VIEW OF KING STREET IN 1836

(2) RESIDENCE AND WAGON-MAKER'S SHOP NEAR THE CORNER OF KING STREET AND

YONGE STREET, 1815

From the John Ross Robertson Collection in the Toronto Public Library

73

large number of persons being thrown out of employment.
There was a surplus population without any occupation.
The disbanded soldiers, the weavers, the tailors, the shoe
makers, the shipwrights, and others who had been thrown out
of work soon became a heavy tax on the country, and their
only hope lay in emigrating.

The story of Richard Talbot of the south of Ireland, a
relative of the Hon. Thomas Talbot, and of his immigration
to the township of London in Upper Canada is similar to
that of many others in a like situation. When the door of
military preferment was closed against his sons he resolved
to emigrate. He made application to Lord Bathurst for a
grant of land in Upper Canada, aided by the intercession
of Lord Rosse. Lord Bathurst replied stating that twenty-
five acres was all the encouragement that could be given to
individuals, but that he was ready to receive proposals from
persons who would undertake the cultivation of large grants
under the following conditions : ten settlers at least were to
be taken out and one hundred acres granted to each ; the
person applying for land was required to deposit ten pounds
for every settler, which was to be repaid him as soon as the
settlers were located on the land ; a grant was to be given
free of expense to the person agreeing to the above pro
posals ; and free passage was provided for the settlers
and the leader of the party, but the party would have to
supply their own victuals.

Talbot agreed to the above proposals, and forty-four
families, consisting of nearly two hundred persons from the
south of Ireland, made their way to Cork to embark for
Canada. Talbot bore a letter from Lord Bathurst to Sir
John Coape Sherbrooke, governor-in-chief of Canada, stating
that he had engaged to take to Canada the settlers whose
names were annexed, and that a grant of one hundred acres
was to be given to each male over seventeen years of age,
and when the settlers were located he was to repay to Talbot
the sum deposited as a surety that the persons he brought
out would take up land.

On June 13, 1818, the party embarked in the Bmnswick
of 541 tons burden, carrying 150 tons ordnance stores for

74 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

the garrison at Quebec and three months' provisions for
Talbot's settlers. Accompanying Talbot were three other
' families of respectability,' those of Mr Geary, Mr Hardy,
and Mr Burton. On July 27, after a voyage of forty-three
and a half days, the ship anchored before Quebec. The party
lost by death twelve persons, all children under fourteen
years of age ; such was the toll of human life exacted by the
Atlantic voyage in the days of the sailing vessel.

Before embarking for the western province Talbot called
upon the Duke of Richmond, who had recently arrived as
governor-in-chief of Canada, and presented his letters of
introduction and the order from Lord Bathurst for the land
he was entitled to. The duke referred him to Lieutenant-
Colonel F. Cockburn, deputy quartermaster-general, who
tried to persuade Talbot to settle in Lower Canada, but
without success. Talbot then received an order for the
provisions for his party on their way to the west and also
for one hundred and seventy blankets for their use.

The party left Quebec for Montreal on August 3, 1818,
in the steamboat Telegraph, and arrived at their destination
on the morning of the 5th. They expected the government
to provide passage from Montreal to the land upon which
they were to settle, but after remaining in that city for a
few days it was found that no provision had been made for
the rest of the journey. An appeal to the governor for
bateaux was unsuccessful. While in Montreal thirty-one of
the settlers and their families, on the persuasion of Colonel
Cockburn, accepted land near Perth, which was just then
being opened as a military settlement.

The remainder of the party left Lachine on August 18 in
bateaux for Prescott, which place they reached on September i.
Two days later they embarked in the schooner Caledonia
for York, where they arrived after a voyage of six days.
Here Talbot was informed by the lieutenant-governor that
he might select his land in any township open for settle
ment. He was referred to the surveyor-general, but received
little information. In a short time Talbot met his kinsman,
Colonel Thomas Talbot, who gave him full information and
particularly recommended the township of London. Acting

ltff

THE MILITARY SETTLEMENTS 75

upon this recommendation the party left York for London
township on September 1 1 . They went by schooner to Niagara,
then by water to Queenston, thence to Fort Erie by land,
and from Fort Erie to Port Talbot by water. The vessel
that conveyed the party was wrecked on the southern shore
of Lake Erie, but only one life was lost. The party soon
after arrival at Port Talbot lodged the women and children
in houses in the township of Westminster, while the male
portion proceeded to the township of London to build houses
on their land for the reception of their families. This was
accomplished by the beginning of December. Talbot was
allowed one thousand two hundred acres of land for himself
for his part in the undertaking.

Six months of travel by sea, by lake, by river and by
land, and then only a home in a forest wilderness, was the
price paid by the pioneer for freedom. In a few years of
arduous toil grain-fields took the place of the forest, and horses,
cows, and sheep the place of wild animals. The labour was
hard, but the reward was great.

THE MILITARY SETTLEMENTS

As already stated, the close of the w r ar with Napoleon
changed the industries of Great Britain to such a degree
that thousands were .thrown out of employment. The
soldier found his occupation gone and the government pro
posed to form a military settlement in Canada, where dis
banded soldiers and officers might become farmers. The
St Lawrence route was considered too hazardous in time of
war with the United States, and several surveys were made
of a route to Upper Canada by way of the Ottawa and
Rideau Rivers to Kingston. This was the first suggestion
of the building of the Rideau Canal and the improvement
of navigation on the Ottawa River. Accompanying the
scheme of improved navigation was the project of settling
the disbanded soldiers and loyal settlers along the route of
the proposed canal, so that it would run through a country
peopled with men of undoubted loyalty.

76 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

The first emigrants to reach the new settlement were
from Scotland. They left Greenock in three transports late
in May 1815, but were on the ocean until September, when
they landed at Quebec. They were taken up the St Lawrence
to Prescott and Brockville, where they spent the winter.
Early in April 1816 they travelled along blazed trails to their
future home. The centre of the settlement was the present
town of Perth on a little river named the Tay, both names
being taken from the home of the immigrants in Scotland.
The land was good and the settlement prospered from its
very inception. About two hundred and fifty people formed
the first pioneer community. From time to time additions
were made to it by emigrants from Scotland and Ulster in
Ireland. The most notable addition was the disbanded
soldiers of the Glengarry Fencibles, the Canadian Fencibles,
and de Watteville's regiment. These men were inured to
the hardships of a life in the new country, and, moreover,
were familiar with the work of clearing forests and with
the building of log-houses. They could handle the ax to
advantage, and were therefore employed in building homes
for the settlers from the Old World and in clearing the land.
The town of Perth was laid out, roads and bridges were con
structed ; soon good reports of the advancement of the
settlement reached Scotland, and there was a great influx
of people. Several circumstances combined to ensure the
success of the settlement from the beginning. The settlers
had a good location and the example of experienced bush-
men to follow, and the military authorities granted them
rations, clothes, and implements. According to a report of
Lieutenant-Colonel Cockburn, issued during the governor
ship of Lord Dalhousie, between one thousand five hundred
and two thousand heads of families had not been the stipu
lated time on their lands to entitle them to receive their
deeds. Under the terms each settler had to clear and culti
vate a part of his hundred acres and live on it for a stipulated
time before receiving his deed. Lieutenant-Colonel Cockburn
feared that if the military authorities withdrew their aid, as
Lord Dalhousie advised, the settlers would get their deeds
and dispose of their lands to speculators and Americans, who

THE LANARK SETTLEMENT 77

would not be desirable persons so near the projected military
highway.

THE LANARK SETTLEMENT

The good reports from the Perth settlement induced
several persons in the shires of Lanark and Renfrew to
petition the government of Great Britain for aid to emigrate
to Upper Canada. Lord Bathurst, the colonial secretary,
approved of the plan laid down by the Lanark and Renfrew
petitioners, and procured for those who wished to emigrate
large grants of land in what is now the county of Lanark.
These grants were given on the understanding that rations
and passage as far as Quebec were to be furnished to the
emigrants by the societies promoting the emigration. In addi
tion each man was paid one pound. To defray the expenses
of those without means 500 was raised in London. The
government gave to each head of a family one hundred acres
of land on condition of residence and that a certain amount
of land should be cultivated within a limited period. When
the settlers arrived at the place of settlement each was to
be advanced 3 and they were to receive an additional 3
six months after arrival. The lands were to be surveyed
by the government, which also agreed to defray the
expenses of transportation from Quebec to the settlement.
During the years 1820 and 1821 over two thousand persons
were brought to Canada under the joint auspices of the
several societies and the government. Their principal places
of settlement were in the townships of Dalhousie, Ramsay,
and Lanark, named respectively after the governor-general,
Lord Dalhousie, his family name, and the county in Scotland
from whence the settlers had come.

In 1821 the governor-general stated that nearly one
thousand two hundred emigrants from Lanark in Scotland
were placed in Lanark in Canada. The chief needs were
teachers and clergymen and aid to build schoolhouses and
churches. The money for these purposes, 300, was raised
in Scotland, mainly through the exertions of the Duke of
Hamilton.

78 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

THE PETERBOROUGH SETTLEMENT

The first township of the county of Peterborough to be
surveyed was Smith, in the year 1818. In that year a number
of people sailed from Cumberland, England, and some found
their way to the township just surveyed. They came in by
the way of Rice Lake and Otonabee River, as there was no
road in from Port Hope. Near the limits of the present city
of Peterborough they erected a temporary log-house, where
they all lived until they had built a small house or shanty on
each lot selected. In the same year other settlers came in
from the older settlements along the front, but their diffi
culties were as nothing compared with the privations under
gone by the pioneers who came from the old land. The
latter, totally unaccustomed to life in the wilderness, suffered
incredible hardships before they cleared, under the greatest
difficulties, small plots of land on which they raised some
potatoes and wheat.

The township of Otonabee was surveyed in 1819 and a
large number of settlers arrived in the next few years.
Captain Spilsbury, a half-pay officer, brought in a number of
settlers, but all but one, George Kent, besides the captain,
found pioneer life too arduous, and left for the old settle
ments. In 1820 about twenty men with families took up
land, and along with them some eight single men. Most of
these were emigrants from the British Isles and came out
singly or in small groups. It often happened that emigrants
from one district in Great Britain or Ireland left the old land
together, but took up locations far apart when they arrived
in Upper Canada. Among the arrivals in the township of
Otonabee in 1820 were some army officers and discharged
soldiers. The most prominent of these was Captain Charles
Rubidge, R.N., who was the first to perform settlement
duties and secure a title to his land. Much of the land near
the front of the township was held by half-pay officers who
did not become actual settlers. These non-resident owners
hired others to perform settlement duties for them. Some
of these officers, it is true, took possession of their land, but
for the most part they found life in the bush distasteful, and

THE PETERBOROUGH SETTLEMENT 79

abandoned their land for homes in the centres of popula
tion more congenial to their habits.

Another settler of Otonabee who deserves special men
tion is Samuel Strickland. 1 He was one of the famous
Strickland family whose literary productions have a high
place in the field of English and Canadian literature. He
came out from Suffolk, England, in 1825, and after a short
residence in Darlington moved to a lot in Otonabee about a
mile from the present city of Peterborough. About 1831
he went to the township of Douro and commenced again the
hard life of a pioneer. His farm near the village of Lake-
field shows that he made no mistake in changing locations.
Strickland took a prominent part under John Gait in the
work of settlement on the lands of the Canada Company in
the Huron Tract. He was a justice of the peace and took
an active part in the volunteer militia during the Rebellion
of 1837, subsequently retiring with the rank of colonel.
Colonel Strickland's book, Twenty-seven Years in Canada
West, was published in London in two volumes in 1853. In
this work he gives a faithful and entertaining description
of his experiences in Upper Canada.

Colonel Strickland was soon joined by two of his sisters.
One of these was Susanna, wife of J. W. Dunbar Moodie, a
retired half-pay officer. The hardships endured by highly
cultured English people who took up land in the wilderness
are graphically described in her work in two volumes entitled
Roughing it in the Bush? This book had a wide circulation
in England and deterred for a number of years immigration
to Upper Canada. Mrs Moodie lived to see beautiful fields
and orchards laden with grain and fruit where once the
stubborn forest held possession of the soil. In a subsequent
volume, Life in the Clearings versus the Bush, she mitigates
somewhat the harsh opinions recorded in her former work,
but not even time could wholly efface the awful recollections
she had of the first few years in the bush north of Peterborough.

Catharine Parr, another of the Strickland sisters, married
Lieutenant Thomas Traill, and with him emigrated to Upper
Canada, where her husband took up land on the shore of

1 See section vi, p. 543. s See ibid., p. 544 et seq.

8o PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

Rice Lake. She was a contributor to Canadian and British
magazines and in 1835 published Backwoods of Canada and
later The Female Emigrant's Guide, two books that affected
immigration to the province. 1

The settlement of the Strickland family in Upper Canada
had an elevating influence on the social life of the province.
At the time of their arrival the people of Upper Canada
were of necessity engaged in a sharp struggle to produce
the necessaries of life. This had the effect of deadening the
finer feelings. At great personal expense the Stricklands
tried to awaken the slumbering literary taste, and in a
measure they succeeded. Before they passed away they
saw Upper Canada the home of a peaceful, happy people,
rich in material things and appreciative of the fine arts,
willing to aid the struggling immigrant from across the sea
to acquire a home within the British Empire.

Although the life of the pioneer settler of a century ago
was a strenuous one, it was conducive to health and longevity.
As an instance of this it may be mentioned that out of
twenty-six settlers from the parish of Tulliallan in Kincar
dine, Scotland, seventeen were living forty-six years after
wards. Of the nine that had died three exceeded eighty-two,
two were between seventy and seventy-five, and four between
fifty and fifty-five years of age. The healthfulness of the
climate, combined with an outdoor life, more than makes
up for the dangers and privations of pioneer life.

The township of Douro was occupied in the fall of 1822,
a year prior to its survey, by two brothers-in-law, Alexander
Stewart and Robert Reid, and their families. These men
on leaving Ireland were furnished with letters of introduc
tion to the lieutenant-governor, who assigned them land in
Douro. Stewart got a grant of one thousand two hundred
acres and Reid one of two thousand on condition of actual
settlement and the performance of settlement duties. They
also had permission to hold the entire township for five years,
so that they could place on it any friends in Ireland whom
they might induce to emigrate. This right they cheerfully
relinquished in 1825, when the Hon. Peter Robinson arrived

1 See section vi, pp. 543-4.

THE PETERBOROUGH SETTLEMENT 81

with his settlers. These two men attained prominence and
accumulated wealth in their new home. Stewart was ap
pointed to the legislative council in 1833 as a reward for his
exertions in promoting settlement.

Mrs Stewart has left a short narrative of her personal
experiences that clearly indicates the difficulties that had to
be overcome and the privations that had to be endured
before the immigrant and his family could pause from the
constant struggle for existence. According to this narrative
the party with which the Stewarts came to Canada left
Quebec by steamer for Montreal on June I, 1822. From
Lachine to Prescott they took bateaux and then steamer to
York, which place they reached in August. After making
arrangements for settlement they left for Cobourg about
October I. Here Stewart was detained through illness.
Reid and some hired men went to their locations and began
work on two clearings and the erection of a shanty. In
November Reid brought his family to their new home, and
Stewart and his family joined them in February. When
the Stewarts arrived in the dead of the night at the shack
prepared for them, they found it in a very unfinished state.
The door had not been hung, no partitions had been put up,
the chimney had not been completed, and the floor was
covered with a thick coating of ice and mortar. There was
a cheerful fire in the fireplace, and the smoke escaped through
a gaping hole in the roof. After a supper of tea, bread and
butter, and pork, they spread their mattresses on some shingle
shavings and slept soundly, although the stars could be seen
through the hole in the roof. About half a mile away Reid
lived under equally hard conditions. His home was a mere
shanty to which the winter winds found easy access.

Conditions soon improved, but as all provisions had to
be brought from Cobourg over bad roads and across Rice Lake,
great inconveniences and losses had to be borne. On one
occasion boots for both families, about twenty pairs in all,
were ordered from Cobourg, but they were lost in crossing
Rice Lake and could not be recovered, and for several
months a number of the party had to go barefoot. Pea-soup
and pork were the principal food of the settlers. Bread was

VOL. XVII F

82 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

in general use when flour could be obtained. Rye-flour was
often a substitute, and one season they were obliged to use
boiled wheat and corn. On one occasion they were forced
to subsist on bran and oatcakes.

The township of Asphodel was surveyed in 1820, but
only about twelve families came in during the next five years.
In 1825, however, like the other townships, Asphodel received
its share of immigrants.

The township of Dummer was surveyed in 1823, but no
attempt was made to settle it until 1831. In the summer of
that year many emigrants from Great Britain arrived at
Quebec. The Marquis of Bath sent out one hundred and
fifty, the government sent out one hundred commuted pen
sioners and their families, while about one thousand seven
hundred came at their own expense. These people were
taken charge of by agents and conducted to Peterborough,
where Captain Rubidge, R.N., who acted as immigration
agent, located them on the unoccupied lands. A large number
were located in Dummer, and the remainder were distri
buted among the other townships.

The mode of location was a very fair one. Guides were
sent out with an advance-party to examine the land, and
when a selection was made the agent issued a location ticket
that entitled each immigrant to one hundred acres on the
fulfilment of certain conditions. A small sum of money,
under five dollars, was given to the settler if he needed it,
and with the help of older settlers near him a shanty was
erected, into which, as soon as possible, he moved with his
effects. Grants of one hundred acres were made to heads
of families and grown-up sons on condition that after the
expiration of four years an annual payment of one shilling
per acre would be made during each of the second four years.
At the end of eight years' actual settlement and upon the
payment of eighty dollars the settler would receive a title
to his land. The government, however, was very lenient,
and if payment was not made within the specified time an
extension was granted. The provincial government allowed
living rations while the immigrants were travelling through
the country and during the time of location.

THE PETERBOROUGH SETTLEMENT 83

The settlers that were located in 1831 were almost ex
clusively from the British Isles and were of a high type.
They were thankful for the little aid given them, and
national pride was an impetus that moved all to put forth
their best efforts to succeed. The next year others came
out under the auspices of a private emigration society in
Glasgow. Such societies sprang up in all large cities
of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Their object was to
change the current of emigration from the United States
to a British colony. The Glasgow society had authority
from the government of Canada to offer intending settlers a
grant of fifty acres of wild land with the privilege of purchas
ing an additional fifty acres at a fixed sum. The story of
these pioneers reads like a romance. After their arrival at
Peterborough they set out to locate their lots. These were
distant about twenty miles and could only be reached by
journeying over a primitive road and trail. Two or three
of the intending settlers went together loaded heavily with
provisions pork and flour being the staples an ax for
chopping a clearance and building huts, blankets for their
covering at night, a tinder-box for starting a fire matches
were not in common use and a can of whisky, the only
medicine in general use in the bush. After the lots were
located the settlers worked together, amid swarms of mos
quitoes and black flies, to erect huts. When the provisions
were nearly exhausted one of the number was sent to the
store for supplies. Instances are recorded where the lone
traveller lost his way, and after several days in the forest
arrived exhausted at the settlement. The first years were
years of incessant toil, but after a small clearing was made
rude plenty was the rule if the chosen lot had a fair percen
tage of good soil. The perseverance and energy displayed
by the pioneers is worthy of remembrance by those who in
a large measure enjoy the fruits of their constant labours.

The townships of North and South Monahan were settled
in 1818 and 1819, when about a dozen settlers took up land
and, under the usual difficulties, made homes for themselves
in the forest.

The township of Ennismore was surveyed in 1825 and

84 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

received some of the settlers of the great immigration in that
year.

In 1832 a number of men of gentle birth settled in Harvey
near Pigeon Lake. The only recommendation for this settle
ment was that the region abounded in game, no small item in
the life of a pioneer. The land, however, in many cases
proved to be poor, and after the settlers had expended their
money in building fancy log-houses and clearing away the
forest they found that the soil yielded poor crops. Inability
to cultivate the land, distance from market, and the lack of
good roads and bridges were serious drawbacks to the pro
sperity of the settlement. In a few years all had left the dis
trict. Some purchased improved farms elsewhere or engaged
in other work more suited to their tastes and early training.

The other townships in the county of Peterborough and
its vicinity have been settled at later dates mainly by sons of
the first pioneers, but the process occupied nearly fifty years.
Railways and good government roads and the experience
gained in the older parts of the province have enabled the
later settlers to become self-sustaining and prosperous in a
shorter time and at less inconvenience than was the lot of
the pioneers who came in during the first two or three decades
of the nineteenth century.

THE IMMIGRATION OF 1825

Before 1825 only about five hundred settlers occupied
the country north of Rice Lake. There was only one settler,
a Mr Scott, where the flourishing city of Peterborough now
stands. In the autumn of 1825 a large accession was
made to these settlers through an emigration from the south
of Ireland conducted by the Hon. Peter Robinson under
the auspices of the British government. Four hundred and
fifteen families, comprising in all 2024 souls, embarked for
Canada. The ships sailed from Cork in May 1825, and after
a speedy voyage for those days of less than a month they
arrived at Quebec, from whence they were immediately sent
on to Kingston. Here they were sheltered in tents for some
weeks. In the meantime Robinson sailed from Liverpool

THE IMMIGRATION OF 1825 85

to New York and came to Toronto by way of Niagara. He
at once went to Cobourg and thence to Peterborough, and in
company with Colonel M c Donell spent a week exploring
townships suitable for the location of the settlers. On
August ii Robinson embarked five hundred of the immi
grants at Kingston and reached Cobourg the next day. The
remainder arrived at intervals of a week. The first task
was to repair the road from Cobourg to Rice Lake to make
it passable for heavily laden wagons. Boats were brought
from Lake Ontario and launched on Rice Lake. From Rice
Lake the Otonabee River is navigable for twenty-five miles,
but the water was so low in the rapids that it was found
necessary to build a boat suitable to their navigation. It
was flat-bottomed, sixty feet in length and eight feet wide,
and could carry from twenty to thirty persons and a large
amount of baggage. This task took eight days and was
entirely successful. The chief difficulty was the fever and
ague that attacked every member of the first party, con
sisting of twenty men of the country hired as ax-men and
thirty settlers, two of whom died. When the settlers arrived
at the present site of Peterborough with their supplies and
household goods, they constructed huts of logs, or of what
ever material came handy, to shelter them from the weather.

Robinson had for his purposes erected five buildings. They
were all built of logs and had shingled roofs. One was used
as a residence by Dr Reade, surgeon to the immigrants, and
as a church in which mass was celebrated by the Rev. Mr
Crowley ; two were used as storehouses ; one was Robin
son's office, where all the business was transacted ; the fifth
and largest was occupied as a dwelling-house by Robinson,
Colonel M c Donell, and John Smith, the surveyor who helped
to locate the immigrants.

During the initial days of the enterprise rations were
dispensed by the government. These consisted of one
pound of pork and one pound of flour for each person over
fourteen years of age, and half that amount for children
between five and fourteen ; every four children under five
were granted an adult ration. These rations were con
tinued for a year and a half.

86 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

The most troublesome part of the work was to locate the
settlers, but in this Robinson was ably assisted by M c Donell
and Smith, and by Captain Rubidge, who gave his services
gratis. The plan adopted was to send the immigrants in
groups accompanied by a guide to select their lands. One
hundred acres were allotted to each family of five persons.
If sons were of age they were given a similar lot. When a
lot was chosen, former settlers were hired to erect a shanty
on each lot, where, after roads were constructed, the settler
and his effects were taken by ox or horse teams, hired for
the occasion from settlers south of Rice Lake. With the
exception of a few who wintered in Peterborough, all the
immigrants were located before the winter set in. Each
family was supplied with a cow, an ax, an auger, a hand
saw, one hundred nails, two gimlets, three hoes, one kettle,
one frying-pan, one iron pot, five bushels of seed-potatoes,
and eight quarts of Indian corn.

While the government did all it could for these people,
the death-rate was high on account of sea-sickness during
the Atlantic voyage and the fever and ague and the hardships
inseparable from life in the wilderness. Fifteen died on the
passage to Quebec and eighty-seven after their arrival in
Canada up till March 1826. Dysentery and fever played
havoc with them. Eleven victims of these diseases were
buried in one day in Kingston. They were not without
medical aid, for a surgeon of the royal navy was on board
each ship, and, as stated above, Dr Reade remained with
them after their arrival in Canada.

Besides the 2024 who embarked at Cork, twelve joined
in Canada, and thirty-three were born in Canada before
March 1826. The location of these immigrants was as
follows :

In Douro . . 60 heads of families

Smith 34

,, Otonabee 51 ,,

Emily . 142

,, Ennismore . 67 ,,

,, Asphodel . 36 ,,

Grave doubts were entertained as to the success of the

THE IMMIGRATION OF 1825 87

undertaking as far as the province was concerned. There
were not wanting persons ready to publish calumnies ; but
from the first these people made excellent progress in clearing
the land and in raising crops and live stock. The estimated
value of their products up to November 1826 was 12,525,
Halifax currency.

An attack was made upon the loyalty and patriotism of
these people by William Lyon Mackenzie in the Colonial
Advocate of December 8, 1826, but this was promptly refuted.
Not a dozen years were to elapse before many of these settlers
enlisted to quell the incipient rebellion fomented by their
slanderer. Descendants of these immigrants occupy lead
ing positions in the learned professions to-day and in a large
degree retain the vivacity, wit, and brilliancy so character
istic of the Irish race the world over.

In the winter of 1826 Peterborough was visited by Sir
Peregrine Maitland, then lieutenant-governor of Upper
Canada. Accompanying him were Colonel Talbot, the
Hon. John Beverley Robinson, George G. Bethune, and the
Hon. Zaccheus Burnham. Passing up the Otonabee they
were met by the Hon. Peter Robinson, Captain Rubidge, and
many of the settlers. Dinner was served at the home of
Captain Rubidge. The party stayed some days in the settle
ment and were housed in Robinson's commodious dwelling,
which caused it to be known locally as ' Government House.'
The governor received deputations from the various town
ships and listened to addresses and visited the settlers in the
township of Ennismore. It is quite characteristic of these
Irish settlers that the only note of grievance in their address
was ' the want of clergymen to administer to us the comforts
of our Holy Religion and good schoolmasters to instruct
our children.*

The visit of the lieutenant-governor had a very cheering
effect upon the settlers. It was an evidence that the govern
ment was not unmindful of them so far from their native
land, and they laboured in their wilderness homes with
a cheerfulness that no discouraging event could damp.
They sent loyal and thankful addresses to Lord Bathurst,
and were the means of enticing to Upper Canada many

88 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

more of their countrymen, who have greatly enriched the
province.

For his great work in forming this settlement Robinson
received the thanks of the Emigration Committee of the
British parliament. The settlers always looked upon him as
their benefactor and friend. At a meeting to select a name
for the town, then called Scott's Plains, it was proposed to
name the place Peterborough as a compliment to Robinson.
The name has also been chosen for the county, which was
formerly called the north riding of Northumberland.

THE GUELPH SETTLEMENT

Many philanthropists had schemes for bringing out emi
grants. One of these men was John Gait, the Scottish writer.
His scheme was to purchase a large tract of land in Upper
Canada and place upon it hundreds of people of Great Britain
who had no occupation and who desired an opportunity to
raise their families in some colony where they would not be
a tax on the community. Gait had travelled much and had
thus extended his education and widened his knowledge of
public affairs. He wrote on subjects of public interest in the
papers and magazines of the day, and consequently, when
he outlined his plans of forming a company to settle the
vacant lands of Canada, the greatest attention was paid to
his suggestions by the people and the government. He did
not wish at first to take any active part in the undertaking.
Tired of a life of adventure, he had taken up his residence at
Eskgrove, near Musselburgh, and intended to devote his
remaining days to literature and the education of his three
sons. He had not been long there before he was called to a
consultation on Canadian affairs by Frederick John Robinson,
afterwards Viscount Goderich, who was then chancellor of the
Exchequer. Upper Canada was at this time seeking assist
ance from the home government for the purpose of meeting
liabilities that it had incurred in bettering the internal com
munications of the province. The chancellor of the Ex
chequer was prepared to satisfy the existing claims against
the province provided it would guarantee to pay half its civil

SIR JOHN BEVERLEY ROBINSON
From a painting in the Department of Education, Toronto

THE GUELPH SETTLEMENT 89

expenses. Gait, through this interview, renewed his interest
in emigration to Canada and consulted many persons well
versed in Canadian affairs, particularly Bishop Macdonell.
The knowledge he now received caused him to modify to
some degree his original ideas regarding emigration. The
result was the formation of the Canada Company, of which
he was appointed secretary.

In 1824, shortly after this company was formed, a govern
ment commission, consisting of Gait, Sir John Harvey, Colonel
Cockburn, Mr M c Gillivray, and Mr Davidson, was appointed
to visit Canada and make a valuation of the crown reserves
in the upper province which it was proposed to sell to the
company. The commission decided that 35. 6d. per acre
would be a fair price. But those interested in the clergy
reserves bitterly opposed the sale of the reserves. The
matter was finally left to arbitration, and in 1826 the com
pany received the great Huron Tract instead of the reserves,
a decision much more favourable than the one proposed. 1

The company was duly chartered with a capital of
;i, 000,000, and preparations were at once made for active
operations. In October 1826 John Gait set out for Canada,
and arrived at York, now Toronto, in January 1827. It was
not long before he had over three hundred offers to pur
chase land. On his first visit to the province he had been
favourably impressed with the land near the township of
Dumfries, the chief town of which had been named Gait after
him by his friend, the Hon. William Dickson. A further
inspection was made, and it verified his early impressions.
He therefore resolved to make this the centre of the first
settlement under the auspices of the company. After a trip
to New York on business he arrived at Dundas on April 21.
The next day, accompanied by a number of persons from the
vicinity of Dundas, he set out for Gait. St George's Day,
April 23, was the day fixed upon for the commencement of
operations. Accordingly, on that day the whole party set out
from Gait for the site of the new town, under the guidance
of Dr William Dunlop, ' Tiger Dunlop,' an eccentric char
acter who had seen service in the War of 1812 and who was

1 See section n, p. 515.

90 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

now ' Warden of the Canada Company's Woods and Forests.'
The doctor lost his way, the party wandered about in a pelting
rainstorm, and it was not till nearly sundown that they
reached their destination. Having dried themselves as best
they could beside a fire started by an advance-party, Gait,
Pryor and the jovial doctor, accompanied by two ax-men,
went to the site of the town, and choosing a large maple tree
as the first to be felled in the new settlement, Gait took an ax
from one of the men and gave it the first stroke ; he then
handed the ax to Dr Dunlop, who gave it a second stroke ;
Dunlop in turn gave way to Pryor. The woodmen then
felled the tree. The occasion was not without a degree of
solemnity, which was relieved by the doctor taking a flask of
whisky from his pocket and all three drinking to the pro
sperity of the future city of Guelph. The name was chosen
in compliment to the royal family. Thus was founded the
present city of Guelph, so beautifully situated on the banks
of the River Speed in the midst of a rich agricultural country.
The work of clearing the land and building habitations for the
workmen was begun the next day. Gait, when in New York,
had engaged, through Buchanan, the British consul, a number
of artisans, carpenters, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and bakers.
During the summer several lots, about forty in number, were
taken up by settlers, and in the following year a large
party of immigrants arrived from Scotland and took up
land between Guelph and Elora, since named the Scotch
Block.

At this time York was the nearest place from which sup
plies could be obtained ; but York was too remote and could
be reached only by the circuitous route through Dundas and
Gait. To assist the settlers Gait conceived the plan of
establishing a depot for supplies at the head of Lake Ontario.
He applied for and received a grant of land on the canal con
necting Burlington Bay with the lake.

While engaged in this work Gait was surprised by the
arrival of a large party of immigrants forwarded from New
York by Buchanan. These people, fifty-seven in number,
had been sent to Caracas in South America by the Columbian
Company, and finding that the glowing picture of conditions

THE GUELPH SETTLEMENT 91

in the southern continent painted by the agents in England
was a delusion, decided to proceed to North America, and,
with the help of British officials, managed to reach New York,
but in a destitute condition. Buchanan, not knowing the
terms under which persons might locate on the company's
lands, forwarded them to Gait. From motives of humanity
these people were sent on to Guelph, but they were so weak
from exposure and sickness that they could not earn enough
to support their families ; consequently they had to receive
advances from the funds of the company. Gait considered
these people a charge upon the country, and, when making
his annual payment to the government, retained the money
advanced them. The receiver-general at York said that the
retention of this money would embarrass him ; thereupon
Gait paid over the money retained, and the subject was left for
future investigation and settlement. From the first there
were persons both in England and Canada who were opposed
to the company and who lost no opportunity to injure Gait.
This case of humanity to a starving people was so misrepre
sented to the directors in London that Gait barely escaped
censure for his generosity. However, he had made no mis
take. These people, who each received fifty acres of land,
fulfilled all their obligations to the company for advances,
and in other ways kept faith with their benefactor without
the loss of a cent of interest or principal.

The choice of the name of the town was another cause of
annoyance. It was represented to the directors that Gait
had deliberately slighted Lord Goderich, and he received a
letter from the directors condemning him for his choice of a
name and ordering him to change it from Guelph to Goderich.
As deeds and legal documents in which the name Guelph
appeared were made out, Gait pointed out that it would take
an act of the legislature to change the name. He was quite
willing to have the name changed if given directions to this
effect. No more was heard of the matter, and to show that
he had no ill-will against Goderich he named after his lordship
a new town that he founded two years afterwards on the shore
of Lake Huron.

In 1828 Gait sent Pryor to survey the Huron Tract, and

92 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

in February of this year he employed Samuel Strickland,
already referred to as a settler near Peterborough, to super
intend the outdoor department in the absence of Pryor.
Strickland's duties were to look after the company's stores,
keep the labour rolls, and oversee the road-making and bridge-
building and everything connected with the practical ad
ministration of the settlement. Strickland in his book,
Twenty-seven Years in Canada West, speaks in the highest
terms of Gait as an administrator and a man. He served
three years with the company, then left it because his
salary was reduced after Gait severed his connection with
the enterprise.

Early in the spring of 1829 John Gait left Canada never
to return. For his remaining days he devoted himself to
literature, but in this he eked out but a precarious existence,
until his death at Greenock on April n, 1839. John Gait
is chiefly remembered in Canadian history as the father of
Sir Alexander Tilloch Gait, one of the most distinguished
Fathers of Confederation and minister of Finance in the first
Dominion cabinet.

After the retirement of Gait the impetus he gave the
affairs of the company continued, and thousands flocked
from the mother country and the continent to settle on its
fertile lands. Hardy sons of the older pioneers went to the
new lands, and the prosperity that came in the first days of
the settlement has continued, so that the Huron Tract is now
one of the most prosperous sections of the province.

Along the Ottawa River in the county of Renfrew lies the
prosperous township of MacNab. It takes its name from
Archibald MacNab, the last chief of the clan to hold the
family estate. The story of its early settlement is as full
of romance, misunderstandings, and quarrels as any pioneer
settlement in the province.

The ancestral home of the clan was in Perthshire, Scotland,
adjoining the town of Killin. It was here in Kennel House
that the laird was born in 1775. The MacNabs were firm

THE MACNAB SETTLEMENT 93

adherents of the Stuarts, and some of them paid the death
penalty for their loyalty. The MacNab estate was heavily
involved when the last laird came into possession, and the
burden was still further increased by his extravagance and
lack of ordinary business ability. His unrelenting creditor,
the Earl of Breadalbane, was suing for possession, and the
officers of the crown were on the track of the proud chieftain.
If he were brought before the court he would have to hand
over the deeds of his estate or forfeit his liberty. Therefore,
anxious to maintain his liberty and to have an opportunity
of redeeming his estate by paying off the amount he owed, he
left his ancestral home to consult with his cousin, Dr Hamilton
Buchanan of Leny. After considering the question from all
sides these representatives of the once powerful houses of Mac-
Nab and Arnprior decided that MacNab should go to America,
there retrieve his fortunes, and return to Scotland and recover
the home of his ancestors from his creditor. He was to start
the next day, but the king's messengers were on his track, and
he was barely able to retreat, partly dressed, out of the back
door of Leny House when the officers tried to gain entrance
at the front door. Dr Hamilton Buchanan, with a shot-gun
at an upper window, threatened to shoot the zealous officers
if they attempted to gain entrance forcibly. Foiled in their
purpose, they set a watch on the house and went to Callander.
MacNab, after receiving food and clothes in the glen, crept
back to the house after nightfall, but was seen by the spy,
who was off at once to inform the officers that the chief w r as
in Leny House. While on the way to give this information
he was seized by four sturdy Highlanders, gagged, blindfolded,
and carried to a mill and kept a prisoner for two days. Two
servants of the laird's kinsman prepared the coach and horses,
and at midnight MacNab and Buchanan set out for Dundee,
where they arrived safely. Here MacNab took ship for
London, and thence to Quebec. It is interesting to note that
the two faithful servants afterwards came to Canada. They
were John Buchanan, who lived for many years at Point
Fortune, and Peter Maclntyre, who died at Calabogie Lake
in 1868.

Meanwhile the Earl of Breadalbane had officers looking

94 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

for MacNab in Scotland, but the first tidings they learned of
him were from the Montreal papers, which recorded a great
banquet given in the Canadian city to the recently arrived
Highland chieftain. In Canada the decree of the court had
no power, hence MacNab was free. From Montreal MacNab
went to Glengarry, visited the Highlanders there, and was for
two weeks the guest of that noble friend of the Scottish im
migrant, Bishop Macdonell. Having received from the bishop
a great deal of valuable information, the chief proceeded to
Toronto to make application for a township on which to locate
a settlement. There had recently been surveyed a township
in the county of Renfrew containing eighty-one thousand
acres. This township, which had not yet been named, was
offered to him, and he was told that if he undertook the
settlement of it he might name it himself. The chief at once
accepted the terms of the government and named the town
ship MacNab after himself.

The agreement entered into with the government is dated
November 5, 1823, and in part is as follows :

That a township of the usual dimensions be set apart
on the Ottawa River, next to the township of Fitzroy,
for the purpose of being placed under the direction and
superintendence of the Laird of MacNab for settlement.
That the said township remain under his sole direction
for and during the space of eighteen months, when the
progress of the experiment will enable the Government
to judge of the propriety of extending the period. That
patents may issue to any of the settlers of said township,
on certificate from the Laird of MacNab stating that
the settling duties are well and duly performed, and his
claims on the settlers arranged and adjusted ; or patents
may issue to Petitioner in Trust, for any number of
settlers, certified by him as aforesaid ; the fee on each
patent to be One Pound Five Shillings and Fourpence,
sterling. That the Laird of MacNab be permitted to
assign not less than One Hundred Acres to each family
or Male of Twenty-one years of age on taking the oath
of allegiance. That an immediate grant of 1200 acres
of land be assigned to the Laird of MacNab, to be in
creased to the quantity formerly given to a Field Officer,
on completing the settlement of the township. That

THE MACNAB SETTLEMENT 95

the old settlers pay the interest on the money laid out
for their use by the Laird of MacNab, either in money
or produce, at the option of the settler ; and that the
settler shall have the liberty to pay up the principal and
interest at any time during the first seven years.

During the next summer MacNab visited his township
to make preparation for the settlers he intended to get from
his estate in Scotland. He was in high spirits and enthusi
astic regarding the future. He built a large house on the
banks of the Ottawa, which he called ' Kennel Lodge ' after
his Scottish home. From here he addressed a letter to Dr
Hamilton Buchanan, which speaks for itself of his high and
noble purpose.

KENNEL LODGE,

ON THE BANKS OF THE OTTAWA,
loth Aug.) 1824.

MY DEAR LENEY, From my last letter you will have
gleaned what my intentions are, and of the progress I
have made. Now I am happy to inform you that all
my arrangements for settlement are complete. The
township of MacNab has to-day been handed over to
me by Sir Peregrine and it contains 80,000 acres of fine,
wooded, arable land and upwards. You will send out
to me, according to your offer, twenty families, at first.
Give them three months' provisions, and make each
head of a family, before you give him a passage ticket,
sign the enclosed bond, which has been specially pre
pared by the Attorney-General. ... I will meet the
settlers in Montreal, and see each one on the land located
to them, and will provide for their transport to their
lands. They should embark early in April, and I should
feel obliged if you would personally superintend their
embarkation at Greenock. Now I am in a fine way
to redeem the estate at home, and in a few years will
return after having established a name in Canada, and
founded a transatlantic colony of the clan.

The preparations can all be made this winter for their
emigration, and I shall be fully prepared to receive them.
I have a large log house erected close to the banks of
the Ottawa, which, as you will see by the heading of
this letter, I have called after my estate on Loch Tay.

(Signed) MACNAB.

96 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

On the receipt of this letter Dr Hamilton Buchanan got
together a band of emigrants consisting of twenty-one heads
of families, each of whom signed a bond to pay 36 for him
self, 30 for his wife, and 16 for every child, with interest
either in money or produce. On April 19, 1825, the emigrants,
eighty-four in all, embarked at Greenock in the Niagara for
Canada. They arrived in Montreal on May 27 and were met
by the chief, who gave them a genuine Highland welcome. The
settlers set out from Lachine for the ascent of the Ottawa
River in bateaux, and in two or three days landed at Point
Fortune. The luggage was hauled to Hawkesbury, where it
was put on a slow steamer which plied on the Ottawa from
that place to Hull. The voyage up the Ottawa to the Chats
Falls was toilsome, and the whole journey from Montreal
took twenty-eight days.

The settlers were soon located on the land, but, as in the
case of all pioneers, their hardships were great. For two or
three years their cleared land would not produce enough to
keep their families, hence the men had to work for the older
settlers in the adjoining townships to get provisions. In
their distress they blamed the chief for all their misfortunes,
and after a time misunderstandings arose. MacNab wished
to rule the township as a feudal lord and to be the inter
mediary between the settlers and the government. Many
tales of the harshness of the chief have been related. It is
just possible that the settlers rued their bargain made in
Scotland when once they were in Canada, where land was
cheap. They never seemed to consider that the chief had
expended a large sum to bring them to Canada and that he
should be reimbursed for his outlay. The chief was arbi
trary, and no doubt acted in a high-handed manner in some
cases, but he was undoubtedly a fine type of the Scottish
gentleman. His detractors did not bear nearly so high a
reputation for probity. While the settlers were in Scotland
or stranded in Montreal they eagerly accepted the terms laid
down by the chief, but when on their lands they forgot their
promise and wished to repudiate their bargain.

In 1830 MacNab met a band of immigrants at Montreal
and induced them to settle on his land and to pay a quitrent

THE MACNAB SETTLEMENT 97

for ever of two barrels of flour or its equivalent in Indian
corn or oats for every two hundred acres. Again, in 1834,
another large party came from Blair-Atholl, Scotland, and
settled in the township.

After a series of lawsuits with the settlers a truce was
called. The government stepped in, purchased the chief's
rights to the township for $16,000 and freed the settlers from
any semblance of feudal vassalage. Shortly after this the
chief quitted the township for ever, and for a few years lived
in Hamilton in a small house purchased from his kinsman,
Sir Allan N. MacNab. In 1843 he left Hamilton for the
Orkneys, where he had an estate to which he had recently
fallen heir. He soon squandered this in foolish and lavish
expenditures, and in 1859 he retired to France. His death
took place on April 22, 1860, at Lannion, a small fishing
village in Brittany.

Some writers would have their readers believe that
MacNab was a tyrant who revelled in the oppression of his
people and that he expended thousands of pounds in bringing
poor people to Canada to live in the township allotted to
him just for the joy of lording it over them. But he was
undoubtedly actuated by the highest motives. He thought
he saw a way to improve the lot of poor people of his native
country. He knew that in Upper Canada, with diligence and
perseverance on their part, they would soon reach a position
of comparative affluence. He also thought that as the settlers
prospered he would prosper. His plan failed for himself, but
not for the people who settled in his township. They and
their children were the gainers. MacNab believed that his
scheme was a practical one ; so thought Selkirk, and Gait,
and Talbot, and dozens of others of theirs. Every one
profited by the efforts at settlement excepting the pro
moters who originated the schemes. Not even to-day, after
a hundred years of experience, is there an exact science of
promoting immigration. It is shifted now from the indi
vidual and the company to the government, and the errors
are as expensive and as evident as at any time in the history
of immigration.

VOL. XVII r .

9 8 PIONEER SETTLEMENTS

THE HALIBURTON SETTLEMENT

In 1 86 1 the Canadian Land and Emigration Company of
London, England, purchased ten townships from the Crown
Land department of Upper Canada. The townships were
Dysart, Dudley, Harcourt, Guildford, Horburn, Bruton,
Havelock, Eyre, and Clyde, and one in the county of Vic
toria. After a good deal of misunderstanding the purchase
was concluded in May 1865. The company bought 362,125
acres at fifty cents per acre, water areas being excluded.
Ordinary settlement duties were to be performed on 261,544
acres in fifteen years. Ten per cent of the purchase-money
was to be refunded to the company for constructing leading
roads through their lands. Chiefly through misunderstand
ings with the crown officials, the company, after operating
for about two years, came to an end. The settlement was
slow in starting, but within a few years prospered, and the
towns of Haliburton and Minden are now thriving centres.

In the review of the various settlements notice has been
taken only of the large migrations from England, Ireland or
Scotland under the auspices of philanthropists such as Talbot,
Selkirk, MacNab, or Gait. Besides these there were many
others who in a quiet way promoted emigration to the pro
vince. In some remote part of the kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland a family had courage and, of course, the means to
leave their home and brave a two or three months' sea-voyage
to America. Once located on a grant of land, they found
themselves, after a year's toil, on the way to affluence. What
they had done their friends from ' home ' could do ; there
fore, anxious for company and to spread abroad the good news
of plenty, they wrote flattering letters of the fertility of the
soil and the wealth that might be gained by healthy if un
remitting labour. In many cases their friends secured the
necessary passage-money and crossed the Atlantic and took
up land beside them.

Thus by land companies, by government effort, and by
individual effort the wilderness of Upper Canada became

THE HALIBURTON SETTLEMENT 99

populated and the forests fell before the ax of the pioneer
builders of Canada. Wheat-fields and stock-farms, peach
and apple orchards and vineyards now cover the land.
Thriving villages, towns, and cities have sprung up on the
shores of the mediterranean seas known as the Great Lakes.
The prosperity of the twentieth century is largely due to the
foundation laid by the pioneers of the close of the eighteenth
and the opening of the nineteenth century.

<^!xc!^L^^

POLITICAL HISTORY

1867-1912

POLITICAL HISTORY
1867-1912

THERE has been attempted as yet no continuous
account of the history of Ontario politics. C. R. W.
Biggar's biography of Sir Oliver Mowat and Colonel
Clarke's Sixty Years in Upper Canada both rank as author
ities ; but one of them is biographical, and the other is
autobiographical ; while both are confined to a part of the
period. No adequate use, moreover, is made in either of
them of the wealth of material to be found in the back files
of the Globe, the Leader, and the Mail, in defunct periodicals
such as the Canadian Monthly and National Review, the
Nation, the Week, and the Bystander, or in the very consider
able pamphlet literature of the time. In one sense, there
fore, this essay may be said to break virgin ground. It
cannot pretend to be exhaustive or definitive. The time for
writing the histoire intime of Ontario politics has not yet
arrived. But within the limitations imposed upon it, it is
an attempt to do what has not been done before.

I

THE PATENT COMBINATION

~^HE Province of Ontario was created by the British

J^ North America Act, and came into existence on July I,

1867. The organization of the government of the

province, however, was not completed in a night. It was

not until July 8, 1867, that the representative of the crown

was sworn in under the title of lieutenant-governor ; it was

103

104 POLITICAL HISTORY

not until July 20 that the cabinet of ministers was com
pleted ; and it was only on December 27 that the first
legislative assembly of Ontario met at Toronto in the old
Parliament Buildings. Nor were these arrangements final.
The appointment to the lieutenant-governorship was merely
a provisional one : Major-General Henry William Stisted,
C.B., Ontario's first lieutenant-governor, was a purely mili
tary personage pressed into service to fill a gap. ' The prin
cipal duties of the Provisional Lieutenant-Governor,' it was
announced, ' will be to form a local administration, to
direct the issue of the writs for an election of the Assembly
of Ontario, and to call the Assembly together when it has
been elected. When the character of the House has been
clearly ascertained, the duties of the Provisional Governor
will be about at an end, and the time will have come for
the appointment of his more permanent successor.' 1 Just
why a provisional lieutenant-governor was necessary to per
form these duties is not immediately clear ; but it may
safely be assumed that the arrangement was dictated by
party exigencies at Ottawa. The truth is that, after Con
federation, Sir John A. Macdonald was in the strange position
of having more offices to fill than men to fill them. In any
case, General Stisted was relieved of his duties the next
summer, and William (afterwards Sir William) Pearce Howland
was appointed in his stead. ' Yankee Howland,' as How-
land was popularly named, owing to his American birth and
upbringing, was a tradesman who had risen to prominence as
a liberal politician ; he had entered the Great Coalition in
1864 with George Brown, but had remained in the government
when George Brown left it. He was minister of Inland
Revenue in the government formed by Sir John A. Mac
donald in 1867 ; and his appointment as lieutenant-governor
of Ontario was perhaps an attempt on Sir John A. Macdonald 's
part to get him out of the way, perhaps an attempt to reward
him for his past services, or possibly both.

The gentleman upon whom Lieutenant-Governor Stisted
called to form an administration was John Sandfield Mac
donald. In doing this Stisted was of course acting upon

1 The Leader, July 9, 1867.

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THE PATENT COMBINATION 105

instructions from Ottawa. The hand was the hand of
General Stisted, but the voice was the voice of Sir John A.
Macdonald. Sir John A. Macdonald and John Sandfield
Macdonald had been political opponents for many years :
one was a moderate conservative, the other was an advanced
reformer ; one was an Orangeman, the other was a Roman
Catholic ; one had fathered Confederation, the other had
opposed it. Yet Sir John A. Macdonald saw, with his usual
eye for strategical advantages, that, partly because of these
very facts, Sandfield Macdonald was the best man to be
placed in charge of the upper province. The conservative
foothold in the upper province had become, since the advent
of George Brown and his agitation for ' Rep. by Pop.', some
what precarious ; and a purely conservative administration
would have had difficulty in getting a majority at the polls.
But by enlisting the services of Sandfield Macdonald, Sir
John effected a coalition (or, as Sandfield Macdonald after
wards named it, a ' Patent Combination ') which, he felt sure,
would carry the province. The only reformer who had been
able to get together a stable administration during the last
years of the Union, Sandfield Macdonald might be counted
upon to win over a considerable number of reform votes ; an
opponent of Confederation who had resolved to make the
best of the new order, he might serve to conciliate that large
element which had been strongly anti-Confederationist ;
and a Roman Catholic, he would be able to carry with him
the Roman Catholic vote, for which George Brown in the
Globe had been angling openly. 1 At the same time, Sir John
felt that he could swing the conservative vote into line also ;
for even if some of the old guard rebelled at voting for a
reformer like Sandfield Macdonald, it was only necessary to
point out that the alternative was George Brown. Thus
Ontario would be assured a strong administration, ready to
work in harmony with the government at Ottawa in setting
the Confederation scheme a-working.

John Sandfield Macdonald was a native Canadian, of
Highland-Scottish extraction. At an early age he had
entered on the practice of law in the town of Cornwall, and

1 Editorials in the Leader, May 29 and July 6, 1867.

106 POLITICAL HISTORY

had eventually amassed a considerable fortune. He was at
the time of Confederation one of the oldest members of
parliament : he had entered the first Union parliament in
1841, when Lord Sydenham was governor-in-chief, and he
had continued to sit in parliament since that time. His
political course had been a somewhat curious one. He had
been elected for Glengarry in 1841 nominally as a conserva
tive ; but when parties began to form, he was found voting
with Robert Baldwin and the liberals. Between Baldwin
and himself there was always the greatest harmony ; from
1849 to 1851 Sandfield Macdonald was solicitor-general
in the Baldwin-La Fontaine administration. The rise of
George Brown and the Clear Grit party, however, drove him
to the cross-benches. An advocate of the ' double majority '
principle and of fair play to the French Canadians, he could
not sympathize with George Brown's agitation for ' Rep.
by Pop.' and his cry of French domination. Between the
two men there was never any real cordiality. Sandfield
Macdonald, indeed, stood so much aloof from the Clear Grit
section of the reform party that Sir John A. Macdonald had
on one occasion at least tried to tempt him with the sweets
of office. It was not surprising, therefore, that he should
have chosen him in 1867 to form the first administration of
Ontario.

It was the desire of both Sir John A. Macdonald and John
Sandfield Macdonald to establish the new administration
on a no-party basis. The work of the legislative assembly
promised to be more administrative than legislative, to
partake more of the character of a county council than of a
parliament ; and there seemed, therefore, to be, under the
circumstances, no broad principles at stake to divide parties.
Sir John A. Macdonald even took the hustings and denounced
the evils of partyism : ' Party/ he said, ' is merely a struggle
for office ; the madness of many for the gain of a few.' 1 A
coalition had carried Confederation ; and it was deemed
advisable to entrust a coalition with the task of putting Con
federation into effect in Ontario. This coalition, explained
the government organ, was not to be ' what is understood

1 Speech at Chatham (the Leader, August i, 1867).

THE PATENT COMBINATION 107

by a coalition to carry certain measures, but a combination
to complete that constitutional superstructure which must
precede ordinary legislation.' l

It was on these lines that Sandfield Macdonald constructed
his administration. On July 15 the first three members of
it were sworn in : the Hon. John Sandfield Macdonald as
attorney-general ; John (aftenvards Sir John) Carling as com
missioner of Agriculture and Public Works ; and Stephen
Richards as commissioner of Crown Lands. The appoint
ment of ' honest John Carling,' a wealthy brewer, met
with general approval ; he had moderate conservative lean
ings and had already occupied the post of receiver-general
in the Cartier- Macdonald government of 1862. Without
pretension as a speaker, he was yet an excellent adminis
trator, and a very useful man about the lobbies. 2 The name
of Richards did not meet with such a favourable reception.
The Globe, with that crude humour which characterized
it during the regime of George Brown, inquired in capital
letters, ' Who is Stephen Richards ? ' And even the Leader
admitted that Richards w r ould not have been its choice.
Nevertheless a very much worse appointment might have
been made. The commissioner of Crown Lands proved
himself a man of high principles and good average ability,
and after four years the Globe was constrained to pay him
an unwilling tribute. ' Mr Richards,' it confessed, ' is slow,
hesitating, hair-splitting, and shabby, but he works.' On
July 20 the remaining members of the cabinet were sworn
in : Matthew (afterwards Sir Matthew) Crooks Cameron
as secretary and registrar of the province, and Edmund
Burke Wood as treasurer. Both these men were distin
guished members of the Upper Canada bar. Cameron was
a high tory, who openly avowed on more than one occa
sion his admiration for the Family Compact, and deplored
the advent of democratic government. VVood (who rejoiced
in the political sobriquet of ' Big Thunder ') was a reformer,

1 The Leader, July 16, 1867.

' Mr. Carling is not a prominent man in debate, but a tolerably active man in
those matters which do not require much speaking in public. No man was more
active than he in doing what business is done in the corridor.' Edward Blake,
speaking at St Catharines (the Globe, December 8, 1870).

io8 POLITICAL HISTORY

and had hitherto been rated in the ranks of the Clear Grit
party.

It was freely charged against Sandfield Macdonald that
in the formation of his cabinet he submitted to dictation
from Ottawa. His government was derided as a fantoccino
ministry, the strings of which were pulled by Sir John A.
Macdonald ; and the way in which the two Macdonalds
' hunted in couples ' during the elections of 1867 gave colour
to the charge. Sandfield Macdonald, however, was not the
sort of man to submit to interference or dictation ; J his most
distinguishing characteristic was perhaps his independence ; 2
and in Sir John A. Macdonald 's official biography there are
not wanting signs that he was not at all amenable to advice
from Ottawa. 3 The charge that he was under the thumb
of Sir John A. Macdonald may therefore be dismissed as
baseless.

It was evident from the first that the Sandfield Macdonald
government was going to meet with opposition. A reform
convention had been held at Toronto in the spring of 1867
under the auspices of George Brown and the Globe, at which
the attitude of the reform party toward coalition govern
ments had been defined. 4 The coalition of 1864, by means
of which Confederation had been carried through, was
justified on the ground of sovereign necessity ; but coalitions
of opposing political parties for ordinary administrative
purposes were condemned as resulting in ' corruption, extra
vagance, and the abandonment of principle/ The resolution
embodying these views was not carried unanimously ; for
W. P. Howland and William M c Dougall, both of whom
had remained in the Great Coalition after George Brown
had left it, defended the continuance of coalition government
with force and courage. But George Brown and his friends
had been able to carry the convention with them. Sandfield
Macdonald knew, therefore, that in forming a coalition
government he would have to count on the hostility of George

1 Editorial in the Leader, November 23, 1867.

2 ' Perhaps the most specially distinguishing characteristic of Mr Macdonald's
mind was his personal independence.' Obituary notice in the Globe, June 3, 1872.

3 Sir Joseph Pope, Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald, vol. ii. pp. 20 and 141.

4 John Lewis, George Brown (' Makers of Canada ' series), pp. 208-9.

THE PATENT COMBINATION 109

Brown and his wing of the reform party. Indeed, he was
openly warned by the Globe that if he did not form his ad
ministration on an exclusive party basis, his blood would be
upon his own head.

It is difficult to justify the introduction of party ism into
Ontario politics by George Brown and his friends in 1867.
It is true, as Edward Blake pointed out later, that the
two-party system is essential to the proper working of the
English form of responsible government. But it must be
admitted that there were in 1867 no principles at stake
drawing hard and fast lines between the parties. The new
administration had not announced its programme ; and, in
any case, its work promised to be so much like that of ' a
glorified county council ' that there seemed to be no excuse
for reviving in connection with it the political feuds of the
Union. If parties had to come, they should have been
allowed to grow up naturally ; they should not have been
perpetuated in the new arena from the pre-Confederation
period. As it was, the only charge that could be levelled
against the government, apart from the baseless charge that
it would be subservient to the conservative politicians at
Ottawa, was that its members had not, in quite other times
and circumstances, belonged to the same political party.
The term * factionist,' therefore, which was applied to the
followers of George Brown, was not wholly inapplicable.
Party ism was their raison d'etre.

The secret of George Brown's attitude was that he be
lieved that his followers were in a majority in Ontario, and
that he should have been entrusted with the administration
of the province. And it must be confessed that he had a
considerable following in the country and some men of out
standing ability as his supporters. At first the government
newspapers had attempted to belittle the ' Brownites.' ' Only
fancy,' said the Leader, ' a Government composed of Alex.
Mackenzie, Millionaire Edgar, Black Bottle Blain, and
Billy Burns.' But it soon came to be realized that a party
which contained men like Edward Blake and Adam Crooks,
for instance, was not to be despised. The faculty which
George Brown showed at this time of attracting brilliant

no POLITICAL HISTORY

lawyers such as these to his standard was remarkable. Blake
especially would have been an acquisition to any political
party. A young man of only thirty-four years of age, he
was already the leading Chancery lawyer in Upper Canada,
and was in receipt of a professional income of over $20,000
a year. He had had no political or parliamentary experi
ence, but his ability as a speaker was great, and his know
ledge of parliamentary and constitutional law profound.
He was, moreover, actuated by the purest public spirit ;
office had no mercenary attractions for him. It was doubted
whether, with his forensic style and his rigid integrity, he
would loom as large in the political arena as he had in the
court-room ; but the doubt might have been spared. No
lawyer ever took to political life more rapidly and naturally
than Edward Blake.

The elections, not only for the provincial legislature,
but also for the Dominion House of Commons, took place
at the end of the summer of 1867 (August-September). In
both the opposition fared with less success than they had
anticipated. The redoubtable George Brown was defeated
in South Ontario when running for the House of Commons,
and so bitterly did he feel the defeat that he resigned the
leadership of the liberal party and never again sought elec
tion to any political assembly. In the local elections Adam
Crooks was defeated in Toronto, and Archibald M c Kellar,
another of Brown's lieutenants, was defeated in Kent (although
he was elected later for Bothwell) ; and when the month-
long elections were over the ' Brownites ' found themselves
in a decided minority in both the provincial and the federal
houses. Almost their only consolation was the brilliant
double victory that Edward Blake succeeded in winning in
West Durham and South Bruce. 1 On the other hand, the
' Patent Combination ' fared very well. Not only were all
the ministers returned, but some private members of experi-

1 In the Leader, July 6, 1867, there is an amusing picture of Blake's cam
paign methods : ' Mr Edward Blake is a man of business and infinite ambition.
He publishes an address to the electors of South Bruce in the morning, declaring
himself a candidate for the representation of that Riding in the Local Legislature,
and on the same day jumps into his yacht and sets out for West Durham with the
intention of wooing the electors of that Riding, for the sake of their dowry in the

THE PATENT COMBINATION in

ence and ability were elected as its supporters. Sir Henry
Smith, who had been solicitor-general in the MacNab-Morris
government of 1854, and speaker of the house of assembly
in 1858-59, was returned for Frontenac ; and R. W. (after
wards Sir Richard) Scott was elected for Ottawa. In a
house of eighty-two members the government numbered
among its supporters almost fifty.

The first legislative assembly of Ontario met on December
27, 1867, in the old Parliament Buildings in Toronto, the
scene of many a fierce political struggle in the days of the
Family Compact. In the first session it was not to be
expected that there would be much work done. The great
majority of the members (seventy-two out of eighty-two)
had never sat in parliament before, and it was thought they
would require time to orient themselves. Even the speaker
chosen, John Stevenson of Lennox, ' one of those Reformers
who at the last election stood shoulder to shoulder with Con
servatives,' was innocent of parliamentary experience. More
over, the financial terms of Confederation had not yet been
finally arranged. Until the accounts between the Dominion
and the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec had been settled,
and the exact financial position of Ontario ascertained, it
was necessary to proceed very slowly in all matters involving
the expenditure of money. The speech from the throne
contained, therefore, the promise of few public bills, and
it was confidently expected that the session would be a short
and uncontentious one.

The expectation proved unfounded. Hardly had the
house got down to business when the prime minister began
to have trouble with his supporters. When the house re
assembled after the New Year's recess, the private members
began to flood it with private bills. Although the govern
ment had only two bills to introduce, Sir Henry Smith, for
instance, had no less than five, and several of these dealt with
matters that ought properly to have been the subject of govern-

shape of a seat in the House of Commons. . . . We expect to hear that West
Durham was startled from its propriety on the arrival of the political wooer in his
yacht. Accustomed to the severe simplicity of farmer Monroe, we very much
fear that the yacht, the eye-glass, and a high style of convention eloquence will
be too much for it.'

ii2 POLITICAL HISTORY

ment legislation. ' If the Attorney-General is not careful,'
said the Globe, ' it will soon become a doubtful point whether
he or Sir Henry Smith is to lead the House, and direct its
legislation.' For several days Sandfield Macdonald allowed
matters to take their course ; but when John Coyne intro
duced a bill respecting Division Courts, the premier rose in
his place and remonstrated with his followers. ' He would
say that there appeared to him an unusual desire on the part
of honourable members to take out of the hands of the govern
ment that responsibility which attached to the government
at all times. The laws of the country ought not to be
legislated upon no alterations should be made in them, at
all events without asking the government. Several bills,
mostly of an important nature, had already been introduced
in this way, without any previous consultation with the
Government ; and the Government were no longer prepared
to sanction this course.' x Sir Henry Smith, in reply,
attacked the premier, and accused him of wishing to ' carry
the whole policy of the administration in his breeches'
pocket.'

During the session there were open disagreements even
among the ministers. ' We cannot permit the occasion to
pass,' said the Leader, at the close of the session, ' without
pointing to the somewhat uncalled-for displays of divergent
views upon many subjects which were made by ministers in
the House.' Perhaps the most notable instance of ministerial
disagreement was in connection with what was known as
' the Battle of the Gauges.' The legislature had been ap
proached by a number of small railway companies seeking
incorporation for the purpose of building local lines. On
account of their greater cheapness these companies sought
permission to build narrow-gauge roads ; in some cases it
was a question of a narrow-gauge road or none at all. The
Grand Trunk Railway Company, however, was hopeful of
being able some day to absorb these local lines, and therefore
fought hard in the Railway Committee to force them to build
broad-gauge roads. The provincial treasurer, E. B. Wood,
was somewhat under Grand Trunk influence, and when the

Speech, Legislative Assembly, January 22, 1868.

THE PATENT COMBINATION 113

Toronto, Grey, and Bruce Railway Company sought the
privilege of building a narrow-gauge road, he brought pressure
to bear on the committee to refuse the privilege. 1 In the
country at large, however, feeling was very strongly in favour
of the narrow-gauge road ; the farmers wanted railways as
quickly and cheaply as they could be got (regardless of how
long the day of satisfactory railway transportation in Ontario
might be deferred) ; and so, when the Railway Committee
reported its bill, another minister, the provincial secretary,
M. C. Cameron, rose in the house and forced through an
amendment conceding the narrow-gauge road. The lack of
union, indeed, throughout the ministerial ranks on this and
other questions was only too marked.

The opposition was compact and aggressive. There had
been, at the beginning of the session, a movement to make
Blake the leader of the opposition ; but Blake, feeling him
self too inexperienced in parliamentary affairs, had declined
the honour. The leadership then devolved upon Archibald
M c Kellar, and for nearly three sessions Blake and the greater
part of the opposition worked loyally under the leadership
of the member for Both well. Early in the session the oppo
sition very nearly won a victory in the debate on dual
representation. Many of the members of the assembly,
including the leaders on both sides, occupied seats not only
in the legislature of Ontario, but also in the Dominion House
of Commons. There was a time when even Sir John A.
Macdonald had thought of occupying a seat in the local
house. 2 The close connection between the two houses which
this system of dual representation brought about was re
garded by the opposition as a source of danger ; it was their
theory that the two houses should be as separate and distinct
as possible. Blake, therefore, although he held seats both
at Ottawa and Toronto, introduced a bill forbidding dual
representation a sort of self-denying ordinance by which
a member of one house was unable to occupy a seat in the
other. This bill was opposed by the government, on the
ground that the question was one for the constituencies to

1 The Globe, February 26, i868 T

2 Sir Joseph Pope, Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald, vol. ii. p. 20 footnote.
VOL. XVII H

114 POLITICAL HISTORY

decide upon as individual cases might arise a very proper
argument, especially at a time when there was an unpre
cedented demand upon the parliamentary talent of the
country. Yet the bill was defeated only by the narrow
majority of two. An even greater success attended the in
genious attempt of the opposition leader to sow discord
in the government camp by moving ' that an address be
presented to His Excellency praying him to recommend an
appropriation of $4000 to Isabella Mackenzie, widow of the
late William Lyon Mackenzie, for her sole use and benefit.'
However much one may deplore here the resuscitation of
dead issues, it must be confessed that the motion proved very
embarrassing to the government. The display of divergent
views on the part of different members of the cabinet which
it called forth can only be described as amusing. The pro
vincial secretary jumped up and delivered himself of a pane
gyric on the Family Compact ; the premier absented himself
from voting ; and the commissioner of Crown Lands, alone
among the ministers, cast his vote in favour of the motion.

The second session of the first legislative assembly of
Ontario, which began on November 3, 1868, opened under
auspices somewhat more favourable to the government.
Sandfield Macdonald had been able before the end of the
first session to get his followers a little more in hand, and
during the summer a troubler in Israel was removed by the
death of Sir Henry Smith. Moreover, during the early part
of the second session, Sandfield Macdonald succeeded in
detaching from their allegiance to the opposition leader a
number of members to the left of the speaker. These were,
for the most part, reformers who had been elected as anti-
coalitionists, but who were not willing to submit to the
dictation of George Brown and the Globe. They were known
as the ' Nine Martyrs,' a name which was attached to them
by the Globe when they wrote to that journal in aggrieved
terms complaining of the treatment they had received at its
hands. They brought an accession to the voting strength of
the government, but probably in the long-run they did the
government more harm than good. A volte-face is always
liable to shock people, and there was no doubt that most

THE PATENT COMBINATION 115

of the Martyrs were guilty of going back on their election
pledges. The means, moreover, by which some of them had
been won over were not thought to be above reproach ; many
believed the Globe's assertion that they had been ' gradually
bought up.' ' Their price,' said the Globe, with an agility
in dodging the law of libel born of long practice, ' is known
to every member of the Assembly.'

Notwithstanding this defection from their ranks, however,
the opposition pursued their attack on the government with
unabated vigour. Their first victim was the provincial
secretary. Cameron, who was a criminal lawyer with a
reputation second to none in the province, had been engaged
to defend the prisoner Whelan in the D'Arcy M c Gee murder
trial. Contrary to all right usage, he had carried out his
engagement ; and Blake, therefore, took the first opportunity
that presented itself of moving a resolution that ' No Minister
of the Crown shall act as Counsel against the Crown, on a
Crown prosecution.' The principle here laid down was so
proper, and the conduct of the provincial secretary so inde
fensible, that even the premier was forced to abandon his
colleague. ' I rather excused than justified him,' was the
best he could say ; and he promised that ' the government
would not permit any more offences of this kind.' 1

The opposition scored heavily in the country also by
attacking the estimates for the new Government House.
' The reputation of the attorney-general for economical ad
ministration,' said the Globe, ' has been a good deal damaged
by the extravagance in connection with the Governor's resi
dence.' And undoubtedly, to the hard-working farmers of
Ontario, $120,000, which was the estimated cost of the new
building, seemed an unnecessarily large sum. It was pointed
out to farmers whose houses had cost $1000 that no less than
$7000 was to be spent on the housing of the lieutenant-
governor's horses. Several thousands, moreover, of public
money (' of Methodist money,' exclaimed the Christian
Guardian) were to be expended upon a ball-room. This
iniquitous waste of public money was all over the country
imputed to the government for unrighteousness.

1 Speech, Legislative Assembly, November 13, 1868.

ii6 POLITICAL HISTORY

It was in the third session, however, which began on
November 3, 1869, that the opposition won its greatest
tactical success. In order to conciliate the people of Nova
Scotia, among whom there had arisen a widespread movement
towards the repeal of Confederation, the government of
Sir John A. Macdonald had been induced to pass an act,
known as the Nova Scotia Act, granting Nova Scotia better
financial terms than had been arranged at the Quebec Con
ference. This action of the Dominion government had been
attacked by Blake during the previous session of the legis
lature, in a series of resolutions declaring that the financial
arrangements made by the Nova Scotia Act were unfair to
Ontario, and should not have been entered into without a
general revision and readjustment of the financial arrange
ments as between the several provinces. This was an attack,
not on the government at Toronto, but on the govern
ment at Ottawa. The opposition, however, was aware that
Sandfield Macdonald was anxious to preserve the fullest har
mony between the Dominion and the provincial governments,
and these resolutions were calculated, therefore, to put the
Sandfield Macdonald government in something of a dilemma.
It would have to condemn the action of the Dominion govern
ment, or seem to betray the interests of Ontario. In the
second session a way had been found out of the dilemma
by the moving of the six months' hoist. But when the house
reassembled in the autumn of 1869 Blake again moved a
series of resolutions, thirteen in number, condemning the
Nova Scotia Act in very much the same terms as before. The
first eleven resolutions were defeated by the moving of the
six months' hoist ; the twelfth resolution was withdrawn ;
but when the thirteenth, which embodied the main principle
for which the opposition had been contending, came to be
voted upon, it became apparent that the government would
not be able to carry the house with it. Thereupon, in
order to save itself from defeat, the government executed
a right-about-face, and voted in a body for the very principle
against which it had been contending. It was many a day
before the government was allowed to forget ' the thirteenth
resolution.'

THE PATENT COMBINATION 117

Toward the end of the third session there was a change
in the leadership of the opposition. 1 M c Kellar had up to this
point led the party in the house, and Blake, although pro
minent in debate, had occupied only the fourth seat in the
second row. M c Kellar now, recognizing the superior ability
of Blake, magnanimously insisted that the leadership should
be transferred to him ; and Blake was no longer able to plead
inexperience, since he had already shown himself an admirable
parliamentary tactician. Blake was therefore installed in the
first seat to the left of the speaker, and led the party during
the rest of the third and all of the fourth session.

The attack of the opposition during Blake's period of
leadership was concentrated largely upon one point in the
government's defences the way in which the government
was administering the public moneys. The charge was not
one of extravagance. Except for the single awful lapse in
connection with Government House, Sandfield Macdonald
was admitted even by his enemies to be an exemplar of
economy : Blake, indeed, on more than one occasion had
criticized him for his parsimony. 2 What proved the undoing
of the Sandfield Macdonald government was its surplus.
Partly as the result of rigid economy, but still more because
of the excellent terms awarded Ontario in the financial
arbitration between the provinces and the Dominion after
Confederation, 3 it very soon became clear that Ontario
would have a surplus of several millions. The greater part
of this surplus was invested in the debentures and other public
securities of the Dominion of Canada ; but it proved too
great a temptation not to use a little of it in the interests of
party patronage. Sandfield Macdonald was a frank prac
titioner of the spoils system : there is something refreshing in
the honesty with which he avowed it. During the elections
of 1867 he made a speech at Hamilton which revealed his
attitude at the outset : ' If you have any axes to grind,' he
said to the electors, ' send them up by my friend Mr O'Reilly.' 4

1 Editorial in the Globe, February 10, 1870.

2 Speech, Legislative Assembly, February 18, 1868.

3 Editorial on ' The Ontario Surplus ' in the Globe, December 5, 1868.

4 The Globe, September 3, 1867.

n8 POLITICAL HISTORY

And when he was attacked in the house for this speech, he
boldly defended himself : ' His principle was, that if the
Government had anything to give, they would give it to their
friends, and if they had anything to give after that, they
would give it to their opponents. That had been the practice
of every administration since he had been in public life.' 1
Hamilton, when it failed to return O'Reilly, was made to feel
the weight of the government's displeasure. The Deaf and
Dumb Institute, which had been situated there, was removed
to Belleville ; for Belleville had returned a government sup
porter. And Strathroy, which had gone Reform, received
no better treatment at the government's hands. When a
deputation waited on the premier with a petition that the
government prison should be built in Strathroy, they were
met by the famous retort, ' What the hell has Strathroy done
for me ? ' a ; and the prison was built in another riding. Some
of Sandfield Macdonald's obiter dicta have a distinctly Wal-
polean ring : ' Stick by me, and I will stick by you ' ; ' What
do you want, gentlemen ? Name your price, and you shall
have it ' ; 'A government must support its supporters,' etc.
On the other hand, it is only fair to remark that Sandfield
Macdonald did not always mean all he said. He himself
explained that ' he had a bad habit of joking with a grave
face ' ; and in his last session he complained bitterly that
' he could not make any jocular remark in the lobbies or in
the halls of a hotel without there being some spies around him
to tell it ; and the next morning it would appear in the Globe,
with the worst possible construction put upon it. 3 To regard
Sandfield Macdonald as personally corrupt would be a grave
mistake ; he had merely the idea of nearly every other
practical politician of his day regarding the distribution of
patronage. And even here he was not a bad guardian of the
public interests. There was a somewhat unusual sincerity
in the apology he made for himself when Blake detected in
the budget a small item of which no very satisfactory account
could be given. ' I have been very economical/ said the

1 Speech, Legislative Assembly, January 13, 1868.

8 The Globe, August 24, 1871.

3 Speech, Legislative Assembly, January 6, 1871.

THE PATENT COMBINATION 119

premier ; ' but sometimes it is very hard to resist these
people.' l

The policy, moreover, which Sandfield Macdonald adopted
of keeping the administration of the public moneys as far as
possible in his own hand proved a second point of attack for
the opposition. In the legislative assembly of United Canada
Sandfield Macdonald had been a sleepless champion of the
right of parliament to control expenditure ; but in the Ontario
legislature he seems to have felt that the business to be trans
acted was of so much more local and administrative a char
acter that it called for a different policy. Sir John A. Mac
donald believed in circumscribing the sphere of the provincial
legislatures ; he had been in favour of a legislative rather
than a federal union, and would doubtless have been glad to
see the provincial legislatures reduced to administrative coun
cils, such as those that exist in the South African provinces
to-day. And there is some reason for believing that Sand-
field Macdonald agreed with him in this view. 2 Sandfield
Macdonald never made any attempt to magnify the sphere
of the provincial assembly, as Sir Oliver Mowat did later ;
and it is difficult to explain on any other hypothesis his deter
mination to substitute executive for parliamentary control
of public business. A foretaste of the premier's policy was
given the house on the second day of the first session : when
it was proposed to appoint a committee on emergencies,
the government declared itself opposed to such a step, and
made it clear that it intended to take the appointment of all
offices in the house into its own hands. ' Such an attempt,'
said the Globe, ' to reduce the Legislature to the position of
a mere department of the Government, comes very strangely
from an old Liberal like the Attorney-General.' 3 During
the second session several large appropriations of money
were made without any detailed knowledge on the part of the
legislature as to the manner in which the money was to be
spent. A lump sum of $20,000, for instance, was voted to
compensate dismissed officials ; but no explanation was offered

1 Speech, Legislative Assembly, January 16, 1871.

2 C. R. W. Biggar, Sir Oliver Mowat, p. 146.
8 Editorial, January 13, 1868.

120 POLITICAL HISTORY

as to how the money was to be distributed. 1 But the esti
mates for the year 1871 afforded perhaps the most striking
exemplification of the government's policy. For a Central
Prison there was voted $150,000 ; for an Agricultural Col
lege, $100,000 ; for a College of Technology, $50,000 ; for
drainage works, $153,000 ; for colonization roads, $50,000 ;
and (an item of which much was destined to be heard)
for railway grants, $1,500,000 : a sum altogether of over
$2,000,000 to be expended at the discretion of the ministers,
and without any real parliamentary control. ' A sum equal
to four-fifths of the ordinary revenue is handed over to the
sole discretion of a man who has openly announced " axe-
grinding "to be part of his system of government.' 2 The
opposition took a strong and definite stand against this policy.
In the session of 1870-71 Blake moved a resolution to the
effect that every order-in-council granting railway aid should
be subject to ratification by the legislative assembly. The
resolution was voted down, but it became a principal plank
in the opposition platform in the elections of 1871.

The enthusiasm and fervour with which the opposition
threw itself into the campaign had in it something fanatical.
' Popular self-government in all that relates to municipal
affairs and interests ; resistance to arbitrary and irresponsible
authority ; local government of all local affairs ; parliamen
tary control of the public expenditure ; strict ministerial
responsibility to the legislature ; economy, not merely in
theory but in practice, as regards the expenditure of the
public money ' 3 this was their official platform. It sounded
like an echo from the days of the struggle for responsible
government. The editorial of the Globe on the eve of the
election campaign ended with the words : ' GOD DEFEND THE
RIGHT.' And even Blake fell into a devotional strain. ' We
are not afraid,' he said at Hamilton, ' to appeal to the con
stituencies of the country for their intelligent .judgment
to appeal to Him in whom we live and move and have our
being to appeal to Him without whom not a sparrow falleth
to the ground to appeal to Him in this crisis of our national

1 Editorial in the Globe, January 25, 1869. z Ibid., March 20, 1871.

3 The Globe, February 15, 1871.

THE PATENT COMBINATION 121

existence and to call upon Him, as I ask you to join with me
in doing, in the prayer that God may defend the right.'

This method of attack proved not unsuccessful. During
the course of the elections Sandfield Macdonald was confined
to his room with a serious attack of illness, and in his absence
from the hustings many old liberals reverted to their party
allegiance. The impression, moreover, had been sedulously
spread by the opposition that Sandfield Macdonald was in
league with Sir John A. Macdonald, and subservient to him.
' The country/ said the Globe, ' has not forgotten the doings
of the last election, when J. S. played the part of John A.'s
shadow, or Man Friday, in so many different places and in
so many ways.' Consequently there was a decided falling-
off in the coalitionist vote ; and when all the returns were
in, it became clear that the government would have difficulty
in getting together a working majority. Its fate, in fact,
seemed to depend on the votes of a few independent members.

The situation with which Sandfield Macdonald was con
fronted, when he came to call the newly elected assembly
together, was a singularly difficult and unprecedented one.
After the elections there had been the usual number of elec
tion appeals. Under the old system, which was in force up
to 1870 in Ontario, election appeals had been heard by special
committees of the house after the house had assembled.
But in the last session of the legislature there had been passed
a new Act for Controverted Elections, which threw the burden
of hearing election appeals on the courts. When, therefore,
Sandfield Macdonald came to call the assembly together, he
found that no fewer than six members had been unseated
under the stern rule of the new election law ; and most of
these were government supporters. There were, moreover,
two other seats which were vacant for one reason or another.
This meant that the government would be almost certainly
in a minority in the house until the by-elections could be
held. Yet the writs for the by-elections could not be issued
until the assembly had met together and elected a speaker to
issue them.

That the situation was not hopeless was the opinion of no
less distinguished a politician than Sir John A. Macdonald.

122 POLITICAL HISTORY

' I am vain enough to think,' he wrote, ' that if I were in his
[Sandfield Macdonald's] place just now, and had his cards, I
could carry him through the first three weeks of the session
wherein alone there is any danger.' * What Sandfield Mac-
donald should have done was clearly pointed out afterwards
by Goldwin Smith, at that time a recent arrival in Canada,
but an interested spectator of the struggle in the Ontario
legislature. 2 The obvious course of the government, said ' A
Bystander,' was ' to summon Parliament in the first instance
only for the election of a Speaker who might receive the report
of the judges and issue the new writs ; and then to move an
adjournment till the number of the House should be com
plete ; or, if it was desirable to proceed with ordinary busi
ness, they might have appealed to their opponents for a
postponement of party questions till the balance of parties
had been decided. No leader of an Opposition could have
refused to respond to such an appeal.' Neither of these
courses, however, seems to have occurred to the cabinet.
Instead of trying to avert a straight party vote, they openly
courted it. Although they could scarcely hope to command
a majority, they called the house together on December 7,
1871, and after a speaker had been duly elected, they opened
the session for general business with a speech from the throne
of the ordinary sort, claiming credit for the success of the
administration, and thus directly challenging a vote of no-
confidence.

The opposition was not slow to take up the challenge.
There was one question at least on which it was certain of a
majority in the house the question, to which reference has
already been made, of the policy of handing over to the
executive $1,500,000 for subsidizing railways, without the
further control of the legislature. The policy of the govern
ment in this regard had proved so unpopular in the con
stituencies that some of the members who were otherwise
well disposed toward the government had been compelled to

1 Sir Joseph Pope, Memoirs of Sir Jof i Macdonald, vol. ii. p. 142.

2 See the paper by ' A Bystander,' ' Ihe Recent Struggle in the Parliament of
Ontario,' in the Canadian Monthly and National Review, February 1872. This
was the first of the ' Bystander ' papers.

THE PATENT COMBINATION 123

pledge themselves against it. Blake, therefore, took the first
opportunity of moving the following amendment to the
address :

But we feel bound to take the earliest opportunity
of informing your Excellency that we regret the course
taken by the Legislative Assembly last Session under
the guidance of your present Ministers in reference to
the large powers given to the Executive as to the dis
position of the Railway Aid Fund, and to state that in
our opinion the proposal of the Government to grant
aid to any railway should be submitted for the approval
or rejection of the Legislative Assembly, so as not to
leave so large a sum as $1,500,000 at the disposal of
the Executive without a vote of this House appropriating
the same to particular works.

This amendment, it should be observed, was highly
improper. It amounted not so much to a vote of censure
on the government as to a vote of censure on the previous
parliament ; and while it is always open to a parliament to
repeal the acts of its predecessors, it is never open to it to
censure them. To censure an act of parliament is to condemn
not only the legislature which passed the act, but the crown
which assented to it. This objection, however, apparently
did not occur to the ministers ; for they immediately pro
ceeded to move, through a private member, a resolution,
' That inasmuch as one-tenth of the constituencies of the pro
vince remain at this time unrepresented in this House . . .
it is inexpedient further to consider the question involved
in the amendment till the said constituencies are duly repre
sented on the floor of this House.' If this resolution had
been couched in the form of an appeal from the premier to
the leader of the opposition, it might have borne some weight ;
although it must be confessed that the government had
already abandoned this ground when it opened parliament
with a speech from the throne of the ordinary kind. But as
a formal resolution it was indefensible. If the principle
which it involved were admitted, it would condemn most
legislatures to a chronic state of suspended animation.

In the divisions which followed the government was

124 POLITICAL HISTORY

defeated. The amendment to the amendment was rejected
by a majority of eight (40-32), and the opposition amendment
was carried by a majority of seven (40-33). There was, how
ever, in this vote, it should be observed, no reason why the
government should resign. The vote had been confined to a
single measure, and that a measure which had been passed
with all constitutional regularity by a previous parliament.
' It is a false sense of honour which leads a Government to
throw up the reins when defeated on any question not really
of a vital kind.' Sandfield Macdonald, therefore, refused to
regard the vote as one of no-confidence, and announced that
he would stay at his post. In this determination he was
supported by all the ministers but one. That one, the
provincial treasurer, E. B. Wood, had convinced himself that
the government had lost the confidence of the house, and
now took what is perhaps one of the most distasteful steps
that a public man can be called upon to take : he sent in his
resignation to the premier, and left his colleagues under fire.
In connection with Wood's resignation occurred a famous
incident known as the ' Speak Now ' episode. A couple of
days after Wood's resignation a note was observed to pass
from Blake to Wood across the floor of the house, and \Vood
was seen, after reading it, to tear it up and throw it in a
spittoon. One of the members of the house, his curiosity
being roused, afterwards investigated the contents of the
spittoon, and succeeded in piecing together the fragments of
the note. All that it contained was, ' You had better speak
now.' Yet on this very flimsy evidence Cameron built up a
charge, which he threw out on the floor of the house, that
Blake had employed corrupt means to induce Wood to resign.
That the charge was groundless will be evident to any one
who takes the trouble to examine the facts. What happened
was this : Wood, having been attacked by his late colleagues
as a deserter, wished to reply at the end of the debate, and
knowing that Blake had control of the house, he naturally
applied to him to find out when the debate was likely to close ;
Blake told him the debate would continue for some time, but
when it showed unexpected signs of flagging, he sent a note
over to Wood telling him that he ' had better speak now ' ;

THE PATENT COMBINATION 125

Wood, however, did not speak. That is positively all there
was in this too famous incident. 1

The opposition, finding that it had failed to dislodge the
government by its first amendment to the address, now pro
ceeded to move a second. Alexander Mackenzie, who had
been elected member for West Middlesex, moved ' That the
House has no confidence in the ministry which is attempting
to carry out, in reference to the control of the said fund of one
and a half million, an usurpation fraught with danger to public
liberty and constitutional government.' Against this motion
several objections might have been urged. It was little
more than a repetition of the first amendment, framed with
the same object of catching stray votes on the railway ques
tion ; and the use of the word ' usurpation,' as applied to a
power duly conferred by parliament, was an absurdity. The
government, however, made no objection to the form of the
motion, and blandly accepted it as a general motion of no-
confidence. In the division that followed the government
was defeated by a majority of one (37-36).

It would seem that the government ought now to have
resigned. The general question of confidence had been
debated on both sides, and it was clear that the ministers
had lost control of the house. Instead of resigning, how
ever, the government brought down in answer to the address
a message from the lieutenant-governor, which contained
the following paragraph :

With reference to that portion of the answer to the
speech which expresses the disapproval by the Legis
lative Assembly of the large powers given to the Executive
under an Act passed by the last Legislature, appropriating
a million and a half of dollars in aid of railways, ... I
have to observe that no action has been taken by my
advisers in regard to the disposition of any portion of
the said fund, except in accordance with the powers
vested in them by virtue of the Act referred to, and that
I will give every constitutional consideration to any

1 Most of the versions of this episode are confused in their chronology. Wood's
speech announcing his resignation preceded and did not follow the receipt of
Blake's note. The best account will be found in the Globe, March 7, 1881, after
Wood's death.

126 POLITICAL HISTORY

bill that may be presented for my sanction, either
repealing or amending the said bill.

All this was true, pertinent, and in fact a complete answer
to the attack of the opposition. But it came too late. The
government had accepted the amendment of the opposition
as a general motion of no-confidence, and it had to abide
by the consequences. If the point made in the lieutenant-
governor's message had been made earlier in the struggle,
it would have told heavily in the government's favour ; but
it seemed as if the government had only wakened up to
the strength of its position after the gates had been stormed.

Blake at once moved a string of resolutions condemning
the ministers for continuing in office against the expressed
opinion of the house, concluding with a threat of stopping
the supplies. Sandfield Macdonald then played his last
card ; he moved in amendment to Blake's resolutions that
' when this House adjourns this day, it do stand adjourned
till Tuesday, the 9th day of January, 1872.' In the divi
sions that followed was seen the extent of the demoralization
that had overtaken the ministerial ranks. The government
amendment was defeated by a majority of 17 (43-26), and
the original motion carried by a majority of 19 (44-25).

The next day (December 19) Sandfield Macdonald an
nounced to the house that the ministry had resigned, and
would continue to discharge its duties only until His Ex
cellency l could form a new administration. ' The little
Premier ' was not accounted an orator, yet the speech in
which he took farewell of official life might well rank among
the classics of Canadian public speaking. In its restraint
and courtesy it revealed the measure of Sandfield Mac-
donald's greatness as nothing else in the session had done.
' I hope/ he said, ' that notwithstanding what has been
said, credit will be given to myself and my colleagues that
we did not do as we did because we desired to retain office,
or for the sake of the emoluments of office, or through any
desire to be considered as the only persons worthy of the

1 This was the title by which the lieutenant-governor was referred to until
1873.

THE PATENT COMBINATION 127

confidence of the House and the country, but because we
believed, as I have said, that there was a duty which devolved
upon us to wait till all the constituencies were represented.' 1
This, indeed, was the key to the government's attitude during
the whole crisis.

There is no doubt that in the struggle which culminated
in his defeat Sandfield Macdonald was outmanoeuvred. He
did not begin to take advantage of his opportunities. ' It
is vexatious,' wrote Sir John A. Macdonald a few days after
the debacle to John Carling, ' to see how Sandfield threw
away his chances. He has handed over the surplus, which
he had not the pluck to use, to his opponents ; and although
I pressed him on my return to make a President of the
Council and a Minister of Education, which he half promised
to do, yet he took no steps toward doing so. With those
two offices, and that of Solicitor General and the Speaker-
ship, he had the game in his own hands. You see that, as I
prophesied would be the case, the first act of the new Govern
ment was to increase the Cabinet.' 2 Sandfield Macdonald
was a poor political manager. Had Sir John A. Macdonald
been in his place, there might easily have been a different
tale to tell. Yet it must be remembered that during those
December days Sandfield Macdonald was far from well in
health. In the summer of 1871 he had been warned by his
medical advisers that continuance in office would be fatal
to him ; 3 but he had refused to leave his post, and it was
only after the defeat of his government that he retired from
the leadership of the party and went back to his home in
Cornwall. There he died, less than six months later (June 2,
1872), of the malady that had been threatening his life for
some time.

Sandfield Macdonald deserved much of Ontario, and re
ceived little. It was he who did the ditch-work for the
foundations of the Confederation scheme in the province ;
and he administered the affairs of the province with great
honesty and economy for four years and a half, under circum-

1 Speech, Legislative Assembly, December 19, 1871.

2 Sir Joseph Pope, Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald, vol. ii. p. 142.

3 Obituary notice in the Globe, June 3, 1872.

128 POLITICAL HISTORY

stances where neither honesty nor economy was easy. That
he had the public interest at heart is the unanimous testimony
from the most diverse quarters ; 1 for even George Brown con
fessed in later days that ' Sandfield Macdonald was a man
who would neither do wrong himself, nor allow those around
him to do wrong ' : 2 a tribute that stultified the editorial
policy of the Globe during the five years from 1867 to 1872.

II
THE BLAKE ADMINISTRATION

IT was on December 1 8, 1871, that Sandfield Macdonald
handed in his resignation to the lieutenant-governor.
On December 19 the lieutenant-governor invited Edward
Blake to undertake the formation of a new administration.
Blake was the official leader of the opposition in the house,
and he had become since his entrance into political life the
hope of the liberal party in Ontario. It was therefore learned
with some surprise that he was loath to accept the invitation
of the lieutenant-governor. Office had apparently no attrac
tions for him ; and he had, moreover, already come to regard
his main interests as lying in the House of Commons at
Ottawa. On the other hand, he doubtless felt the moral
obligation incumbent on him of fulfilling his election pledges ;
and he therefore agreed, on the solicitation of his political
friends, to form a cabinet, and undertake the duties of the
premiership until other arrangements could be made. No
secret, however, was made of the fact that his tenure of
office was only temporary at the best. 3

1 Clarke, Sixty Years in Upper Canada, p. 138 ; Cockburn, Political Annals of
Canada, p. 505 ; Goldwin Smith, Reminiscences, p. 436 ; speeches of Sir James
Whitney, A. G. MacKay, D. B. Maclennan, and the Lieutenant-Governor of
Ontario in the Proceedings at the Unveiling of the Statue of John Sandfield
Macdonald, in the Queen's Park, Toronto, November 16, 1909 ; and obituary
notices and editorials in the Globe, the Leader, and the Mail. The editorial in the
Mail is especially valuable, since Sandfield Macdonald had been one of the founders
of the paper, and the editor, T. C. Patteson, was a close personal friend of his.

2 Quoted in an election dodger, Opposition Campaign Sheet Answered : Mr
Sandfield Macdonald and the Opposition, 1879.

3 Editorial in the Globe, March 1872.

THE BLAKE ADMINISTRATION 129

The formation of the new cabinet was announced by
Blake on December 21. The office of attorney-general was
entrusted to Adam Crooks, who had been defeated in the
elections of 1867, but who had been returned in 1871. The
office of provincial treasurer went to Alexander Mackenzie,
the stone-mason who became a few years later the first
liberal prime minister of Canada. Archibald M c Kellar, the
predecessor of Blake as leader of the liberal party in the
house, was made commissioner of Agriculture and Public
Works ; and Peter Gow, the member for Guelph, was made
provincial secretary. The only appointment which caused
surprise was that of R. W. Scott as commissioner of Crown
Lands. Scott had entered the legislature in 1867 as a sup
porter of Sandfield Macdonald. In 1871 he had been elected,
on the nomination of the government, speaker of the house ;
but at the time of the fall of the government he had been
attacked by the government press, and when he attempted
to make a personal statement from the chair, there had been
a violent scene between himself and Sandfield Macdonald. 1
Never perhaps a very enthusiastic supporter of the ' Patent
Combination,' Scott had been easily persuaded by Blake to
resign the speakership and join the new administration.
There was in this action nothing irregular. It was open to
the speaker to resign at any time. Yet it must be confessed
that, to the public eye, the course adopted by Scott seemed
to savour somewhat of opportunism. It was, moreover,
openly charged against him that he was ' the paid agent '
of the lumber interests ; certainly on many occasions he had
acted as their legal representative ; and it was not unjustly
deplored that he should have been given, of all offices, the
office of commissioner of Crown Lands. Just why Blake
should have gone to the speaker's chair for a commissioner
of Crown Lands is not as yet clear ; there were other men on
the floor of the house no less capable of filling the position
than Scott. Probably the true explanation of his appoint
ment was that it was necessary to give the Ottawa valley a
representative in the cabinet. 2

1 Debate, Legislative Assembly, December 20, 1871.

2 ' A Bystander,' op. cit., p. 149.
VOL. XVII

130 POLITICAL HISTORY

Blake himself, being ' both unable and unwilling to go
through the drudgery incidental to a regular department,' *
became president of the council without salary. This was
a very adroit arrangement. There was no statutory provi
sion in Ontario at that time for more than five portfolios in
the cabinet, although the lieutenant-governor was able to
appoint extra executive councillors without portfolio. By
virtually entering the cabinet without portfolio Blake was
able to increase the number of ministers from five to six (and
in the existing state of political parties he was not blind to
the advantages of having five instead of four portfolios to
distribute) without expending one cent more of public money,
and at the same time he was able to consult his own private
inclinations. This increase in the size of the cabinet was
immediately made a point of attack by Sandfield Macdonald.
On the day before the house adjourned for the New Year
recess, and after the resignation of all the new ministers,
even of Blake himself, to appeal to their constituencies,
Sandfield Macdonald introduced a resolution condemning
the government for the increase in the number of ministers.
The division that resulted was a measure of the disaster that
had overtaken the ' Patent Combination ' : the resolution was
defeated by a majority of thirty-eight votes (50-12).

In order that the new ministers might familiarize them
selves with their departments the house did not reassemble
after the New Year recess until January 1 8, 1872. During
this interval the by-elections were held, both for the pur
pose of filling the seats vacated by the election petitions and
for the return of ministers. Of the six ministers five were
returned by acclamation, and the sixth, Adam Crooks, met
with only a nominal opposition in West Toronto. Of the
eight constituencies that were vacant, every one returned a
member favourable to the government. The explanation of
this sweeping victory lies partly in the issue on which the
by-elections were largely fought. This issue, strange to say,
had little or nothing to do with Ontario politics. During
the Red River troubles of the previous year an Orangeman

1 Dent's Portrait Gallery, p. 125. The sketch of Edward Blake's life in this
work was revised by Blake himself.

THE BLAKE ADMINISTRATION 131

named Thomas Scott had been shot at Fort Garry by order
of Louis Riel, president of the provisional government at
the Red River Settlement ; and the authorities at Ottawa
had shown themselves somewhat dilatory in bringing the
murderers to justice. It was freely charged that Sir John A.
Macdonald had allowed the French interest at Ottawa to
tie his hands, and was shielding the perpetrators of the
crime. Now the government of John Sandfield Macdonald
had been persistently represented as in league with that of
Sir John A. Macdonald ; and even after the fall of Sandfield
Macdonald 's government the liberals did their best to identify
the remnants of the * Patent Combination ' party with the
government of Sir John A. Macdonald. The result was that
the electorate, unable for the moment to lay hands on Sir
John, turned about and rent his supposed ally, John Sand-
field. A more senseless issue never invaded the political
arena. The Ontario opposition had no more to do with the
failure to punish Thomas Scott's murderers than the babe
unborn, yet it was made by the electorate the scapegoat of
Sir John A. Macdonald's sins. The liberals, who professed
to believe in the absolute divorce of provincial and Dominion
politics, were guilty here of a grave confusion between
the two.

When the house reassembled Blake therefore found him
self in possession of a majority more than adequate for the
transaction of public business. During the first few days of
the session his majority ranged all the way from twenty to
sixty. On the other hand, the opposition met in a dis
heartened and disorganized condition. Its former leader,
although he was able to appear occasionally in the house,
declined to resume the leadership of the party, and the
thankless position devolved upon M. C. Cameron. Cameron
was a very distinguished lawyer and a man of the strictest
integrity ; l yet it cannot be said that he proved a success
as a parliamentary leader. In the first place, he was
not born to be a politician. ' Must I shake hands with

1 Clarke, op. cit. y p. 184. ' He was so precise in his ideas of honesty that he
would not send an unstamped letter to the house post-office if it were on any other
than public business.'

132 POLITICAL HISTORY

everybody in this way ? ' he once plaintively inquired when
engaged in a canvass as a candidate for the mayoralty of
Toronto ; and when he found that shake hands with every
body he must, he retired from the contest. 1 His political
views, moreover, were of that pure and old-fashioned tory
character which it is now possible to admire from a dis
tance : he believed that responsible government was no im
provement on the Family Compact system ; he regarded
the secularization of the clergy reserves as robbery ; and he
deplored any extension of the franchise as a step towards
revolution. His views, therefore, were hardly in accord with
those of most of his followers. Moreover, during his regime
he seldom consulted the wishes of his supporters ; under him
the opposition caucus became almost an extinct institution ; 2
and members had to be content to follow the leader. To
make the situation more intolerable, Cameron's attendance in
the house became later on fitful and intermittent, and his plan
of campaign was often ill-conceived. ' His tactics,' observed
' A Bystander' in i872, 3 ' appeared too forensic for a political
assembly. Extreme tenacity in fighting every possible point,
however secondary and however doubtful, may be the duty of
an advocate, and may gratify a client, but it never fails to
produce a bad effect upon statesmen.'

Cameron's conduct of the opposition during Blake's
premiership was erratic and quixotic. On the one hand,
he made mistakes so egregious that it is difficult to see how
he could have committed them. On the floor of the house
he made charges against both E. B. Wood and R. W. Scott.
He accused Scott of being the * paid agent ' of the lumber
interests and of having abandoned his allegiance to the
' Patent Combination ' because a grant had been refused to
a railway in which he was interested ; yet he made no attempt
to furnish proof of these allegations. He accused Blake of
having induced E. B. Wood by corrupt means to resign the
provincial treasurership ; yet the only ground he had for this
accusation was that Wood had received, a few hours before

1 Biggar, op. cit., p. 720. z Ibid., p. 720.

3 ' The Late Session of the Parliament of Ontario,' in the Canadian Monthly
and National Review, April 1872, p. 320.

THE BLAKE ADMINISTRATION 133

his resignation, an envelope addressed in the handwriting
of Blake, and two days after his resignation a note run
ning, ' You had better speak now.' And when a committee
was appointed to investigate his charges against Blake
and Wood, Cameron declined to appear before it on the
ground that the motion that he had submitted had been
amended by the government and the responsibility for the
investigation removed from his shoulders. A great deal
of time was wasted during the session on these recrimina
tions ; nor did Cameron come out of the fray with flying
colours. In the debate that took place on the Independence
of Parliament Bill, with regard to the increase in the size of
the cabinet, Cameron perpetrated another ineptitude. In
amendment to Blake's resolution that the number of cabinet
ministers should be limited to six, Cameron moved : ' That
in case any member of the legislative assembly hereafter
becomes a member of the executive council, his election
shall be void and his seat vacant.' This motion can only
be described as a curiosity of parliamentary literature. If
it meant anything, it meant the divorce of the executive
and legislative functions of government and the abolition
of responsible government. To the credit of the legisla
ture be it said, only four other members were found to vote
for Cameron's amendment.

Yet, on the other hand, in the debate on the appre
hension of the murderers of Scott, Cameron alone took the
attitude which must commend itself to every dispassionate
historian. Shortly after the house reassembled Blake in
troduced a resolution to the effect 'That this House feels
bound to express its regret that no effectual steps have
been taken to bring to justice the murderers of Thomas
Scott, and is of opinion that something should be done to
that end ' ; and in accordance with this resolution a reward
of $5000 was offered by the Ontario government for the
apprehension of Riel. The only excuse for this action
was that the murdered man had been a native of Ontario ;
other pretext there was none. The question was one which
lay within the province of the federal authorities, and the
liberal party of Ontario, with its professed view of the

I 34 POLITICAL HISTORY

constitution, should have been the first to respect the line
drawn between the federal and the provincial spheres. 1 The
resolution was a reprehensible attempt to make party capital
out of a national embarrassment, and to attack Sir John
A. Macdonald in an assembly where he was not present
to defend himself. Cameron ventured to point out this
aspect of the question in the debate. Yet so strongly did
feeling run in ' Orange ' Ontario on the subject that not
one even of Cameron's immediate followers cared to vote
against the resolution. The leader of the opposition stood
up and recorded a solitary ' Nay,' with sixty- two of his
fellow-members arrayed against him.

In fulfilment of their election pledges the government
introduced a bill making all railway grants subject to ratifi
cation by the legislature. Under this provision a good deal
of time was occupied with the discussion of the various
Railway Aid Bills. Toward the end of the session the
government introduced its long-expected bill prohibiting dual
representation, which made it impossible for a member of
the provincial legislature to be at the same time a member
of the Dominion House of Commons. This bill was opposed
by the opposition, and J. C. Rykert (familiarly known as
' Scrap-book Charley ') introduced an amendment setting
forth that the bill interfered with the rights of the people
to choose such representatives as they thought fit, and that
it was inexpedient and improper to take away such rights.
It was argued that the bill would tend to rob the local
legislatures of their best men, at a time when there was
a distinct shortage in parliamentary ability in Canada.
The government, however, was resolved to end any con
nection which might have existed between the provincial

1 Sir John S. Willison, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal Party, vol. i.
pp. 182-3. ' The common opinion of Ontario was that the execution of Scott was
hardly distinguishable from deliberate murder ; and separated as we now are
from the passion and clamour of that time, it is not easy to reach any other con
clusion. But even if this be admitted, the fact does not constitute an adequate
justification for the action of the Ontario Legislature in offering a reward of
$5000 for Kiel's apprehension. The question lay within the province of the
federal authorities, and no good purpose was served by making the death of Scott
an issue in local politics, and enmeshing legitimate provincial questions in the
incidents of a revolt in Manitoba.'

THE BLAKE ADMINISTRATION 135

and the federal houses ; and the bill was passed by a large
majority.

The new rule worked in the legislature a sort of revolution.
Several of the most prominent men in the house immediately
elected to sit in the House of Commons at Ottawa : John
Carling, for instance, in the opposition, and Edward Blake
and Alexander Mackenzie in the government. Blake and
Mackenzie, indeed, took the quickest and shortest way to
prove sound the argument that the bill would bring about
an exodus of the best men to Ottawa. They, the two fore
most men on the government side of the house, immediately
packed their impedimenta and said farewell to provincial
politics. The situation in the House of Commons, it is true,
was such that their presence in Ottawa was perhaps more
imperative than it was at Toronto. Yet it is difficult to
excuse the cavalier manner in which Edward Blake thrust
aside so soon the honours which the people of Ontario had
conferred upon him.

Blake became later a member of the Mackenzie adminis
tration at Ottawa ; for many years he was the leader of the
liberal party in the Dominion ; and during the declining
years of his life he represented an Irish constituency in the
Mother of Parliaments. But he never again did anything
which quite fulfilled the promise of his first five years of
political life. In 1867 he had entered politics a young man
of thirty-four years of age and a novice in parliamentary
affairs ; yet in little more than four years he had driven
from office a government led by a veteran politician, backed
by all the aid which Ottawa could lend, and had himself
become the head of the new administration. He was not,
it is true, without defects as a political leader. His ' repulsive
nod ' did not endear him to the backwoodsmen in the house
or to the cross-roads politicians, and his cast of mind was
perhaps too cold and forensic ; as D'Arcy M c Gee once said
of a fellow-member, he was ever too ready with his cork-block
and razor to split hairs. But he bestrode the narrow world
of provincial politics like a Colossus. His mighty intellect,
the powerful if involved periods of his oratory, his executive
ability, and the mastery that he showed from the first of

136 POLITICAL HISTORY

parliamentary tactics, all made him appear a giant among
pygmies ; and it doubtless seemed, not only to himself, but
to many of his contemporaries, that his proper sphere was
the larger arena.

Ill
THE BEGINNING OF THE MOWAT REGIME

IT might naturally have been expected that Blake's suc
cessor would be Archibald M c Kellar. M c Kellar had been,
until Mackenzie's election to the legislature, Blake's lieu
tenant ; and, indeed, it was he who in the first instance had
made way for Blake in regard to the leadership of the party.
Blake, however, did not advise the lieutenant-governor to
send for M c Kellar; if he had done so, the history of the
liberal party in Ontario might have been very different.
He advised the lieutenant-governor to go outside the cabinet,
and even outside the legislature, to the judicial bench of
the province. The successor he recommended was Oliver
(afterwards Sir Oliver) Mowat, one of the vice-chancellors
of Ontario.

Oliver Mowat had been a politician of some note in the
days preceding Confederation. He had been postmaster-
general in the Macdonald-Dorion government of 1863-64 ;
he had joined the coalition in 1864 as one of George Brown's
colleagues ; and he had sat in the Quebec conference as one
of the Fathers of Confederation from Upper Canada. Shortly
after the conference had concluded its deliberations he had
been raised to the bench as vice-chancellor of Upper Canada,
and since that time he had of course been lost to political life.
The dignity and quiescence of life on the bench he had found
most agreeable, and probably nothing was further from his
mind than leaving the bench when he received a call one
October morning of 1872 from Edward Blake and George
Brown. Blake and Brown came to offer him the leadership
of the liberal party in Ontario. With his habitual caution
Mowat deliberated for some time before accepting the offer.
From the standpoint of worldly prosperity the change, he

w

...

,

THE BEGINNING OF THE MOWAT REGIME 137

could not hide from himself, might have little to commend
it. It meant exchanging a dignified and assured position
for a life of precarious turmoil. Actuated, however, partly by
public spirit and partly by an honourable ambition, Mowat
was eventually prevailed upon to accept the offer and to
undertake the formation of an administration.

The administration that Mowat formed in the autumn of
1872 was merely a reorganization of the cabinet that pre
ceded it. Mowat took the office of attorney-general ; Crooks,
who had been attorney-general, was given the office of pro
vincial treasurer, which had been vacated by Mackenzie ;
M c Kellar remained commissioner of Agriculture and Public
Works ; and Scott, commissioner of Crown Lands. The only
change was in the office of provincial secretary and registrar :
Peter Gow, who had held this office in the Blake government,
desired on the score of ill-health to be relieved of his duties,
and Timothy Blair Pardee, a lawyer from the western part
of the province, was appointed in his place. It will be
observed that the unpaid office of president of the council,
which had been held by Blake, was dropped, and the cabinet
reduced in number from six to five.

On November 29, 1872, Mowat was elected by acclama
tion member of the legislature for the North Riding of Oxford,
a constituency that he continued to represent throughout
his long and unbroken career as premier of Ontario. In the
election address which he issued on this occasion there was
foreshadowed the policy which he was destined to pursue.
He said :

I hope soon to mature, with the aid of my colleagues,
and to carry, at an early date, measures for the satis
factory settlement of the Municipal Loan Fund debts ;
for the just appropriation of the surplus revenues of
the province ; for obtaining an augmented immigra
tion, principally of agricultural laborers and domestic
servants ; for the more rapid development of the agri
cultural and other resources of our country ; for the
reform of the laws in regard to various matters in which
experience has brought to light defects and injurious
anomalies ; and for securing increased efficiency in the

138 POLITICAL HISTORY

working of our educational and municipal institutions,
in the administration of justice, and in other depart
ments of public service. 1

In this pronouncement, it will be observed, there was
nothing very original or revolutionary. There was nothing,
for instance, that might not have been placed in the mouth
of Sandfield Macdonald ; even the subject of the settlement
of the Municipal Loan Fund debts was one which his govern
ment had been preparing to deal with. Except in one or
two regards, there was not a world of difference between the
policy of the Mowat government and that of the ' Patent
Combination ' ; certainly the similarity between the two was
much more pronounced than the dissimilarity. The chief
difference lay in the energy and activity with which Mowat
carried out his policy. He was inspired with the modern
idea that it is the duty of a legislature to legislate ; and that
the more it legislates, the better it is performing its duty.
In this sense, at least, Mowat was an incorrigible Reformer.
The average number of bills passed during each session under
Sandfield Macdonald had been ninety-three ; the number
passed during Mowat's first session was one hundred and
sixty-three, and many of these were of such length that the
volume in which they were printed was more than double
the size of any previous volume. A tireless worker himself,
Mowat did not spare the members of the legislature, and
often during his regime the house heard midnight strike.

At the opening of the session of 1873 the opposition,
unable to level many criticisms against Mowat's platform,
concentrated its attack on what it termed his * descent from
the Bench.' The morning after his acceptance of the premier
ship had been announced, the Mail, which had been founded
a few months previously as the organ of Sandfield Macdonald
and his friends, attacked him for lowering the judiciary by
his return to the political arena ; and when the house met,
the lead of the Mail was followed by Cameron. ' In my
opinion,' said Cameron, ' no occupant of the Bench should
be permitted to hold a political position again ; certainly not
for a considerable period after he has resigned his judicial

1 Biggar, op. tit., p. 155.

THE BEGINNING OF THE MOWAT REGIME 139

office.' 1 Mowat defended himself against the attack with
learning and ability, and it must be confessed that he had
somewhat the better of the debate. For while it cannot be
denied that too frequent an interchange between the Bench
and political life would have an unfortunate effect, no valid
objections can be urged against an occasional interchange ;
and the frequency with which the charge was made that
Mowat's action was ' unconstitutional ' merely served to
show how vague were the ideas about constitutional law
current in Canada at that time.

A characteristic of Canadian political assemblies is the
almost morbid delight they take in fighting over again old
battles. In spirit, if not in form, they love to violate the
parliamentary rule against referring to a past debate. The
session of 1873 was a signal illustration of this. During the
first part of the session whole days were spent in ventilating
again the ' Speak Now ' incident, the charges against R. W.
Scott, and an election scandal known as the ' Proton outrage,'
which had come to light during the previous session. The
opposition complained that inquiry into all these matters
had been burked, and there may have been some ground
for this complaint. It is perhaps too much to expect that
a parliamentary committee of inquiry, in Canada at least, con
taining a majority of government members, will probe the
charges of the opposition to the bottom. But in the cases
in question, at any rate, the opinion may be hazarded that
evidence was lacking to substantiate completely the charges
made. Still another matter which was revived and thrashed
out once more was the question of Thomas Scott's murder ;
but this question, which had been debated already in two
parliaments, proved so threadbare that even members of the
legislature cried out for relief.

Notwithstanding, however, the waste of time entailed by
these debates, Mowat pushed through an astonishing amount
of useful legislation. The Election Law was amended ; the
Licence Act was made more stringent ; and a measure of law
reform was passed, the first of many such measures which
Mowat was sometimes accused of passing for the sake of

1 Biggar, op. cit., p. 175.

140 POLITICAL HISTORY

keeping up the appearance of legislative activity. A useful
work was effected in the codification of the municipal law
of the province, a codification which has remained the model
for all later statute revisions. But the most important
measure of the session was the Municipal Loan Fund Act.
This act had entailed an enormous amount of labour, and it
probably did more than anything else at this time to com
mend Mowat's government to the electorate. The Municipal
Loan Fund had been created in 1852 by the Hincks-Morin
government for the purpose of enabling municipal councils
to borrow money from the government on more favourable
terms than they could obtain elsewhere. This fund, as
might have been expected, had proved a direct invitation to
extravagance. Municipal corporations all over the province
had borrowed sums far in excess of their actual needs, sums
which in more than one case had been invested in unprofitable
speculations. The town of Cobourg, for instance, with a popu
lation of less than five thousand, had borrowed half a million
dollars from the fund and invested it in the Cobourg and
Peterborough Railway, which, on the construction of a rival
line from Port Hope, straightway became a white elephant
on the town's hands. A period of depression set in, and
many municipalities found themselves involved in obligations
which it was difficult, if not impossible, for them to discharge.
The government, however, proved a lenient creditor ; and
the municipalities discovered that they did not need to pay
any more on account with the Municipal Loan Fund than was
convenient. Thus the debts of the municipalities had grown ;
and when the Province of Ontario was formed in 1867, these
debts were one of the assets which the province was obliged
to take over. As soon as it became known that the province
was likely to have a considerable surplus, an agitation had
sprung up to apply the surplus towards clearing off the debts.
It was pointed out, and there was much truth in the argument,
that an indebted municipality was to an undesirable extent
at the mercy of the government of the day, and that an
improvement would be effected in the political morality of
the province if the debts were compounded for in some way.
Sandfield Macdonald, it was suspected, was not perhaps

141

entirely averse to keeping the indebted municipalities at his
mercy ; but when the liberals came into office, it was re
solved by them to apply the surplus of about four millions
which they found in the treasury to the wiping out of the
Municipal Loan Fund debts on an equitable basis. During
its few months of office the Blake government was not able
to take the matter up ; but when Mowat assumed the reins
of power, he immediately applied himself to the solution of the
problem. The principle Mowat adopted in his bill was simple
in the extreme. He proposed to allot to each municipality
of the province a sum equal to two dollars per caput of the
population, subtracting therefrom, in the case of munici
palities indebted to the Municipal Loan Fund, the amount of
their indebtedness ; and where this indebtedness exceeded
the amount of the proposed subsidy, taking new debentures
for the balance, payable in twenty annual instalments. By
these means a fair distribution of the surplus was effected,
and at the same time the Municipal Loan Fund indebtedness
was wiped off the slate. The bill encountered almost no
opposition ; and it is an interesting fact that it received the
hearty endorsement of E. B. Wood, to whom the task had
been assigned of considering the subject under Sandfield
Macdonald's government. It is, indeed, difficult to resist the
belief that had Sandfield Macdonald possessed the foresight
and energy to pass a measure similar to Mowat's, he would
have escaped defeat in 1871.

The session was also remarkable for the introduction into
the assembly by Dr Clarke of Norfolk of the first bill for the
prohibition of the sale of spirituous liquor as a beverage.
The ' prohibition movement,' which had originated in the
United States, had spread into Canada, and by this time was
beginning to gather head. Such strides had the movement
made, in fact, that Dr Clarke was accused of popularity-
hunting in introducing his bill. The debate which took place
on the bill had its amusing and its pathetic aspects. M. C.
Cameron, who professed himself a total abstainer, spoke
against the bill as an invasion of individual liberty ; and
E. B. Wood, who was not by any means a total abstainer,
spoke warmly in its favour. There is no doubt that the

142 POLITICAL HISTORY

government found the question embarrassing, as other govern
ments have found it since. Mowat was personally in favour
of prohibition ; but he was evidently not anxious to become
responsible for the operation of the bill. He therefore took
refuge in a constitutional objection. ' He was bound to say
he had formed the deliberate and confident opinion that the
legislature had no jurisdiction in the matter. . . . The
buying and selling of liquor was a matter of trade and
commerce which was beyond our jurisdiction.' * He got
from the speaker a ruling, therefore, to the effect that
the bill, being ultra vires of the legislature, was not in
order ; and the discussion was perforce dropped. As is
well known, this opinion of Mowat's was not afterward
sustained by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ;
it is almost the only opinion of Mowat's on the British
North America Act which was not sustained by that body ;
and it is impossible to resist the suspicion that in his dis
covery of the constitutional objections to the bill Mowat's
wish was father to the thought. He was not usually so care
ful about overstepping the limits assigned to the provincial
legislature.

The most sensational event of the session, however, and
one which threw much light on some of the hidden influences
governing Ontario politics, was the introduction of the Orange
Lodge Incorporation Bill. The Loyal Orange Associations
of Eastern and Western Ontario had applied to the legis
lature for incorporation. In the Private Bills Committee
these applications met with such opposition that one of them
was rejected ; but through some oversight the other was
reported. When this bill reached the house, bedlam straight
way broke loose. There were only three Roman Catholics
in the house ; but one of them, R. W. Scott, was a minister
of the crown, and another, Christopher Findlay Eraser, was
one of the most prominent of the government supporters,
and they attacked the bill with great vehemence. The
situation in which Mowat found himself was far from com
fortable. He was himself in favour of granting the Orange
men incorporation ; but ' with a Roman Catholic in his

1 Debate in the Legislative Assembly, March 10, 1873.

THE BEGINNING OF THE MOWAT REGIME 143

cabinet, and a Roman Catholic contingent, enlisted by a
recruiting process of the most laborious description, among
his followers, he had nothing for it strategically but to make
the question an open one.' x In the division lists Mowat
was found voting on one side, while the rest of the cabinet
voted on the other ; and ' on the sheets of the Grit journal,
one could almost see the pistols held to each side of the
writer's head.' The bills were passed by 32 to 24, and the
incident was by most people regarded as closed. But at
the close of the session Mowat's colleagues brought pressure
to bear upon him ; the discovery was made that the bills
were possibly ultra vires of the provincial legislature ; and
they were accordingly reserved by Mowat for the signification
of the Queen's pleasure. This somewhat unusual procedure
was adopted in order to throw on the government of Sir John
A. Macdonald the responsibility of allowing the legislation
to go into force. Sir John, however, was too astute to be
caught in such a transparent trap, and he recommended the
governor-general to send the bills back to Toronto, on the
ground that they lay entirely within the authority of the
provincial legislature. Mowat, therefore, found himself still
with the bills on his hands ; and under these circumstances
he was reduced to the expedient of passing in the next session
a general bill respecting Benevolent, Provident, and other
societies, under which the Orangemen and every other simi
lar body could get incorporation if they wished it. The
shifts to which Mowat was put by the Orange Bills seem
at this distance somewhat unworthy ; at the time they must
have been object-lessons to observers on the importance in
Ontario politics of ' the Orange vote ' and ' the Roman
Catholic vote.'

During the year 1874 there were two sessions of the
house, one in the spring, the other in the autumn. During
the first of these the attack of the opposition was mainly
directed against Mowat's action in connection with the
Orange Bills, and against the timber policy of the Crown
Lands department. The Crown Lands department had been

1 ' Current Events ' in the Canadian Monthly and National Review, April 1873,
PP- 333-4-

144 POLITICAL HISTORY

granting away the timber of the province, even in unsurveyed
districts, in a very prodigal manner ; it is evident that the
department did not realize at that time, as it realizes now,
the necessity for conservation. The government newspaper
even ventured to scout the argument that the interests of
remote generations outbalanced the interests of the present
settlers and lumbermen. This policy the opposition attacked,
advocating the reservation for the present of all timber
on unsurveyed lands. For their attitude in this regard the
opposition deserved high credit ; at the same time, it must
be confessed that their policy was not one which in 1874
was likely to be popular.

In the autumn session the opposition devoted their
energies mainly to convicting the government of extrava
gance, but without conspicuous success. Cameron made
also an attack on the administration of the department of
Agriculture in connection with the Model Farm at Guelph.
The head of this institution, a Professor M c Candless who
had been brought from the United States, had been dis
missed by the government ; and he came forward with serious
charges against the administration of the department, and
even against the personal character of the minister, M c Kellar.
Cameron took up the case for Professor M c Candless, and
an investigation was held. Professor M c Candless accused
M c Kellar of introducing undesirable visitors into the insti
tution, and of himself having paid too much attention to the
matron of the establishment, who proved, however, to have
been engaged to be married to M c Kellar ; and M c Kellar
retorted with a charge of a similar nature against Professor
M c Candless. The investigation reflected no credit on any
one concerned ; and it might have done harm to the govern
ment had not the government been able to bring counter
charges against a prominent member of the opposition.
M c Kellar, thirsting for blood, accused J. C. Rykert of St
Catharines of accepting fees from railways in return for
parliamentary services. A committee was appointed to
inquire into these charges, and Rykert was convicted by a
small majority. The evidence against him was fairly con
clusive, but it may be doubted whether it would have been

THE BEGINNING OF THE MOWAT REGIME 145

sufficient to convict him had he been a supporter of the
government.

While these sordid squabbles were going on, the work of
legislation was being pushed forward by Mowat. The work
of law reform was continued by him ; and a commission was
appointed to revise and codify the general public statutes of
Ontario. A bill was passed, modelled on the English Ballot
Act of 1872, which introduced the ballot into the provincial
elections ; and another bill, introducing the ballot into muni
cipal elections, became law. Mowat introduced also the first
of those measures extending the franchise which were to
culminate in the Manhood Suffrage Act of 1888. In his
measures of law reform and electoral reform Mowat followed
English precedents somewhat closely ; but in his measures of
franchise reform he outdistanced his English models com
pletely. From the first he set up manhood suffrage as his
goal ; but the manner in which he reached that goal affords
a good example of his cautious statesmanship. In 1872,
when he assumed office, the right to vote depended in Ontario
on the ownership or occupancy of real property of a certain
value. This was in accordance with English traditions ;
and if any one had proposed at that time to introduce such
a radical departure as manhood suffrage, he would probably
have found the feeling of the electorate strongly opposed to
him. Under these circumstances Mowat undertook to edu
cate public opinion by a gradual extension of the franchise.
In 1874 the right to vote was extended to those who were in
receipt of an income of $400, even though it might not be
derived from land. In 1877 the franchise was extended to
include farmers' sons resident on their parents' farms ; in
1885 there were enfranchised : (i) owners, tenants, or occu
pants of real estate to the value of $200 in cities and $100 in
townships and villages ; (2) persons in receipt of $250 a year
by way of income or as wages ; (3) persons entered on the
assessment roll as ' householders ' ; (4) sons of landholders,
resident with their fathers and assessed as such ; (5) enfran
chised Indians or persons with part Indian blood otherwise
qualified and not residing among Indians, though sharing
in the tribal income. Having thus paved the way, Mowat

VOL. XVII

146 POLITICAL HISTORY

was able in 1888 to pass his Manhood Suffrage Act nemine
contradicente.

At the end of the session of 1874 there was passed, sure
presage of a coming election, a redistribution bill, which
increased the representation in the legislature from eighty-
two to eighty-eight.

IV

MOW AT AND CAMERON: EDUCATION AND
THE LICENCE SYSTEM

THE elections for the third legislative assembly of Ontario
took place in January 1875. The issues on which
the election was fought were not, it must be confessed,
of vital importance. The liberals, for their part, attempted
to fasten on the opposition the stigma of the Pacific Scandal :
men like M. C. Cameron, who had condoned the sins of Sir
John A. Macdonald, were not, it was argued, worthy of being
entrusted with political power. The opposition, on the other
hand, pointed to the results of the Model Farm Investigation
and other scandals which had been unearthed in connection
with the administration : much capital, for instance, was
made of some irregularities in connection with the building
of a fence about the parliament buildings. The election,
indeed, like so many provincial elections since, resolved itself
into a battle over the question whether the kites were blacker
than the crows. In another regard, also, the election was of
ill-omen for the future of provincial politics. It was the first
provincial election in which the question of the ' Roman
Catholic vote ' played an important part. For this result
the government was partly responsible. In November 1873
R. W. Scott had resigned the commissionership of Crown
Lands to enter the Mackenzie administration at Ottawa.
The vacancy thus created in the cabinet was filled by the
appointment of Christopher Findlay Fraser, the Scottish
Roman Catholic who had led the attack in the house on the
Orange Incorporation Bills. This was an undoubted bid

EDUCATION AND THE LICENCE SYSTEM 147

on the part of the government for the Roman Catholic
vote. There had been formed a few years previously in
Toronto a Catholic League which had as its object the more
adequate representation of Roman Catholics in parliament
and in office. Between this league and the liberal party
managers there was brought about an entente, and an attempt
was made to throw the Roman Catholic vote in the direction
of the government. The attempt was not wholly successful,
for many Roman Catholics refused to be treated as pawns in
the political game ; but a feature had been introduced into
Ontarian politics which was not to disappear for many bitter
years.

The result of the poll was a decreased majority for the
government. Under the circumstances this result must be
regarded as somewhat surprising. The conduct of the opposi
tion had not been such as was calculated to arouse confidence
in its leaders ; and indeed, on the eve of the election, one
of the opposition newspapers had made an editorial attack
on Cameron. ' We claim,' it said, ' that Mr Cameron has
not bent his whole mind to the task of leading the Ontario
Opposition, that he has not taken the rank and file suffi
ciently into its confidence and counsel, and that, in conse
quence, too much haphazard opposition has resulted.' l It
would not have been found unusual if, with such backing
as this, Cameron had led his party to annihilation. But
Cameron himself roundly defeated Crooks in East Toronto,
and his party came back considerably stronger than it had
been before. The suggestion has been made, by an unpre
judiced observer, that the result was not arrived at along
party lines, but that ' personal qualifications and local in
fluences, altogether apart from politics, had much to do with
the result.' 2 By 1875 the Canada First movement had
reached its height, and it is reasonable to suppose that it
exerted an influence toward independence in provincial as
well as in Dominion affairs.

After a year of appeals and counter-appeals, of controverted
elections and by-elections (out of which the party of purity

1 The Leader, December 14, 1874.

2 Canada First, a Memorial of the late IVilliam A. Foster, Q.C., p. 77.

148 POLITICAL HISTORY

came with its skirts not wholly unsullied), the third legisla
tive assembly met on November 24, 1875. The new house
presented a somewhat altered complexion. On the govern
ment benches Crooks still sat, having after many months
found a resting-place in one of the Oxfords ; but there was
missing the genial face of Archibald M c Kellar. M c Kellar,
there is no doubt, had proved himself a source of weakness
to the government, and Mowat had therefore translated him
during the summer to the shrievaltyof Wentworth County with
a salary of $7000 a year. His place as commissioner of Agri
culture and Public Works was taken by Samuel Casey Wood,
the member for South Victoria, who possessed considerable
financial ability, and who was ultimately destined for the office
of provincial treasurer. On the opposition benches a new
figure was that of William M c Dougall, who had been defeated
in East York at the January elections, but who had subse
quently found a seat in South Simcoe. M c Dougall had long
been a prominent figure in Canadian politics. He had begun
his career as one of the founders of the Clear Grit party, and
a radical of a very pronounced type. Later he had allied him
self with George Brown, and with him had played a prominent
part in bringing about Confederation. He had been a member
of the Great Coalition ; but when George Brown left the
Coalition, M c Dougall had refused to follow him. He had
been the minister of Public Works in the government of
Sir John A. Macdonald after Confederation, and had been
appointed by Sir John in 1870 lieutenant-governor of
Rupert's Land and the North-West Territory. He had
thus, as M. C. Cameron once said, boxed the political com
pass. His attempt, as lieutenant-governor of the North-
West, to reach Fort Garry in 1870 had ended in failure, and
for several years he had lived in comparative retirement.
But in 1875 he heralded his entrance into provincial politics
by a pamphlet entitled Six Letters to the Hon. Oliver Mowat
on the Amendment of the Provincial Constitution, in which he
attempted to read Mowat a lesson in constitutional law.
M c Dougall entertained the same view of the relations between
the Dominion and the provinces as Sir John A. Macdonald
did ; he regarded the provincial legislatures, for instance, as

EDUCATION AND THE LICENCE SYSTEM 149

merely ' enlarged county councils.' Some of M c Dougall's
contentions may have been unfortunate, but there was a
need at that time for some one in the Ontario legislature who
would champion the supremacy of the Dominion. M c Dougall,
moreover, was a distinguished and experienced politician,
and he should have been a valuable acquisition to the
legislature. Unfortunately, however, he never achieved the
position in the legislature which his abilities and experience
might have seemed to warrant. The liberals disliked him,
on account of his former secession from the liberal party ;
and he was not favourably received by the opposition, because
it had been confidently announced that he was to supplant
Cameron in the leadership of the party. He therefore found
the new atmosphere not thoroughly congenial, and after
two or three years of parliamentary service he retired into
private life.

In the long list of ' parish bills ' (to use the Nation's
epithet) which found their place upon the statute-book in the
session of 1875-76, there were only two of outstanding im
portance. The first of these was ' An act to amend the law
respecting the sale of fermented or spirituous liq ors,' popu
larly known as the ' Crooks Act,' since it was Adam Crooks,
the provincial treasurer, who introduced it into the house.
This act was the result of pressure brought to bear on the
government by the temperance people of the province. For
many years the assembly had been flooded with petitions
demanding the abolition or restriction of the liquor traffic,
and since 1873 the government had incurred severe con
demnation in the country for their course in throttling
Dr Clarke's prohibition bill. Mowat had therefore de
termined to see whether the legislature was not competent
to pass at least a measure of governmental control of the
liquor traffic. Since Confederation the control of liquor
licences in the province had been vested in the municipalities,
and it must be confessed that the municipal councils had been
scandalously slack, for the most part, in their administration
of the law. The new act proposed, therefore, to take the
control of licences away from the municipalities, and place
it in the hands of boards of commissioners appointed by the

150 POLITICAL HISTORY

government. It was expected, and not without reason, that
this arrangement would produce a more rigid administration
of the licence law and a decided decrease in the amount of
intemperance in the country. At the same time, it was un
fortunately true, as was pointed out by the opposition, that
the act placed in the hands of the government powers of
patronage in regard to licences w T hich presented exceptional
opportunities for corruption. The licence commissioners
appointed by the government were for many years often
pronounced partisans it was an avowed principle of Mowat's
that acts of parliament can be satisfactorily carried into
effect only by friends of the government. 1 Through these
commissioners a connection sprang up between the govern
ment and the licensed victuallers which was a real menace
to the purity of provincial politics. Mowat was an honour
able and conscientious politician, but he was as expert a
practitioner of the spoils system as Sir John A. Macdonald.
' The Ethiopian,' as Goldwin Smith wittily observed, * does
not change his skin, even when he becomes a Christian
Statesman.'

The other notable bill of the session was the Education
Bill. Up to 1876 the education system had been under the
control of the Council of Public Instruction appointed by the
crown from among the most eminent educationists of the
province. In 1875 the chairman of the council had been no
less distinguished a scholar than Goldwin Smith. For a
number of years, however, the council had been at daggers
drawn with the chief superintendent of Education, the Rev.
Egerton Ryerson ; and after a clash of exceptional bitterness
between the two, the chief superintendent had come to Mowat
and asked for the abolition of the council. 2 Egerton Ryerson
had played a not unworthy part in Canadian history ; he

1 The Bystander, a Quarterly Review of Current Events, April 1883, pp. 87-8.
The Bystander was written wholly by Goldwin Smith, and is one of the most
discerning commentaries on Ontario politics during the periods which it covers.
It was published monthly from January 1880 to June 1881 ; quarterly from
January 1883 to October 1883 ; and monthly from October 1889 to September
1890.

2 See the account by Goldwin Smith in the Bystander, August 1880, pp. 416-18 ;
January 1881, pp. 17-18 ; March 1881, p. 131.

EDUCATION AND THE LICENCE SYSTEM 151

had placed the Canadian people under obligation to him on
more than one account ; but he was nevertheless a person of
turbulent temper and defective education, and it is difficult
to understand how he came to exert the influence he did over
the government of Mowat. There were not wanting those
who avowed it was because he was supposed to carry the
Methodist vote in his pocket. However that may be, he
succeeded in persuading Mowat to carry out his wishes. A
bill was introduced abolishing the Council of Public Instruc
tion, and substituting for it a new department of Education,
with a responsible minister of Education at its head. For
the present, it was explained, the addition of a new minister
to the cabinet was not contemplated ; the duties of minister
of Education were to be discharged along with those of pro
vincial treasurer by Crooks, for a couple of years at least.
But eventually the two offices were to be separated, and
Crooks would take over the portfolio of Education alone.

The Education Bill, like the ' Crooks Act,' placed in the
hands of the government dangerous powers in regard to
patronage. It brought the educational system of the pro
vince under the thumb, so to speak, of a practical politician.
Mowat gave his word that, under the new regime, political
considerations would not be allowed to enter into educa
tional appointments ; and it is pleasing to think that to a
large extent this promise was kept. There were, of course,
a few political appointments made, especially in connection
with the provincial university, but it is fortunate that there
were not more. In spite of its objectionable features, the
bill might not have met with an unreasonable opposition
from the conservatives, had not Mowat attempted to rail
road it through the house. Like Blake, Mowat was occasion
ally guilty of the device of bringing his most important bills
down at the end of the session, and pushing them through
without detailed discussion. The Education Bill, the Licence
Bill, the Railway Aid Resolutions all suffered this fate in the
session of 1875-76. The Railway Aid Resolutions, appor
tioning the grants to the various railways, were introduced
by the government at the tail end of the session, and pushed
through en Hoc : a method of procedure not greatly superior

152 POLITICAL HISTORY

to the much condemned Railway Aid policy of Sandfield
Macdonald. In the same way Mowat sought to push the
Education Bill through the house. When the second reading
of the bill was moved, Cameron protested that sufficient
time had not been allowed for the consideration of the bill,
and threatened that, if the debate were not adjourned, he
would avail himself of constitutional means of obstruct
ing the bill. Mowat retorted, 'Try it,' sotto voce; and
Cameron accepted the challenge. Consequently the house
sat till after three A.M., listening to a highly embroidered
and interminable speech by Creighton of North Grey, who
recounted in detail the life-story of a ' fascinating Michigan
schoolmistress with an iron jaw.' 1 It was only when it was
discovered that there was no longer a quorum that the house
adjourned.

The greatest clash of the session, however, took place
over an amendment of the Election Law, introduced by the
government only a day or two before the house rose. Since
the elections of January 1875 five of the government sup
porters had been unseated and disqualified in the election
trials for corrupt practices. In some of these cases the dis
qualifications had been a real hardship, inasmuch as the
offences committed had been of a minor and technical kind.
There had arisen in the house a feeling that these members
should be relieved by the legislature of the penalties inflicted
by the judges, and the government undertook to introduce
an amendment of the Election Law overriding the judges'
decisions, and reinstating the members referred to.

When the government's proposals were introduced, how
ever, it was found that they applied not only to the members
who had been unseated for technical offences, but also to
those who had been unseated for personal bribery. Against
this proposal the opposition protested vigorously. Cameron
and William (afterwards Sir William) Ralph Meredith, the
deputy-leader of the opposition, offered amendment after
amendment ; and when it became clear that Mowat was
determined to stand his ground, Cameron announced that
he would not be a party to such an iniquitous proceeding,

1 Clarke, op. cit., pp. 217-18.

EDUCATION AND THE LICENCE SYSTEM 153

and with all his supporters marched out of the house, ' while
Major Rosevear, of East Durham, one of the wags of the
Conservative party, turning his face to the House, shook his
leg vigorously and made a final, decorous, yet sweeping bow
to the Speaker.' 1 This incident was long known as ' the
March of the Cameron Men.'

In the sessions of 1877 and 1878 there was little that
calls for remark. In the first of these sessions the report
of the commissioners appointed to consolidate and revise
the Statutes of Ontario was received and adopted ; and
' The Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1877,' stand as a memorial
not only to the labours of the commissioners, but to the
industry and efficiency of Mowat as attorney-general. Mowat
deserved all the credit which could be given him for bringing
the laws of Ontario out of confusion thrice confounded. An
amendment was made in the Franchise Law, whereby the
sons of farmers residing with their parents were given the
right to vote ; and a bill to introduce cumulative voting in
municipal elections was introduced by Bethune, but with
drawn at the instance of the attorney-general. A bill to
dispense with unanimity in the verdicts of juries suffered
the same fate, meeting as it did with the opposition of both
Mowat and Cameron. The chief skirmish of the session
was over the estimates, which the opposition fought item
by item. When the item for unforeseen and unprovided
expenses came up, for instance, M c Dougall moved that the
proposed sum of $50,000 be reduced to $20,000, so that such
a large sum might not be left to be expended at the sole dis
cretion of the government. To those whose memories went
back a few years, this motion must have suggested reflec
tions on the mutability of political parties. In the session
of 1878 an interesting debate took place on the question of
prayers in the house at the beginning of each day's session,
a debate which illustrates well the characters of Cameron
and Mowat. ' Considering that honorable members were
sent to the House to support one party or the other, and that
they did so without any reference to the nature of the

1 Clarke, op. cit., p. 185. The incident did not, however, as Clarke states,
take place in connection with the Education Bill.

I 54 POLITICAL HISTORY

measures introduced, he [Cameron] did not think it was in
the interests of morality and religion that a form of prayer
should be offered up asking for Divine direction, when the
course of nearly every member had already been deter
mined. It would, in his opinion, bring discredit upon
religion, and on that ground he was opposed to the motion.' *
Mowat replied that ' he was surprised and disappointed at
the observations of his honorable friend, as he had really
expected him to support this motion. He did not agree with
the leader of the Opposition that members voted for bad
measures for party reasons ; but he would only say that if
there were men in the House who so acted, there was all the
more necessity for prayer, for Divine blessing and guidance,
to prevent such wickedness in the future.' 2 It was clear
that there were here two temperaments in conflict.

During the recess of 1878 there were two important defec
tions from the opposition ranks. William M c Dougall, realiz
ing that he was lagging superfluous on the political stage,
resigned his seat and retired from public life ; and M. C.
Cameron was appointed by the government of Sir John A.
Macdonald, which had just been returned to power on the
National Policy, a judge of the Court of Queen's Bench.
Cameron had, no doubt, fallen short of success as a leader
of the opposition ; he had been too quixotic, too uncalcu-
lating, too outspoken ; he had despised the arts of a political
manager, and had often been pursuing his briefs when he
should have been listening to dull speeches in the house ; and
he had failed sometimes to keep his party together, or even
to carry it with him. It was an open secret that he did not
have the complete confidence of many of his supporters,
and it was doubtless a good thing for the conservative party
when he laid down the leadership. Yet no one can examine
closely his political career without conceiving an admiration
for him on account of his sincerity and freedom from cant.
In spite of one or two lapses from good taste, he was the soul
of honour :

And thus he bore without abuse

The grand old name of gentleman.

Biggar, op. cit., pp. 306-7. 2 Ibid,

MOWAT AND MEREDITH : PROVINCIAL RIGHTS 155

V
MOWAT AND MEREDITH : PROVINCIAL RIGHTS

THE mantle of M. C. Cameron fell upon the shoulders
of William Ralph Meredith. Meredith had entered
the legislature in 1873, the successor of John Carling as
member for London. He had had no previous parliamentary
experience, but his high character, his fine presence, and his
very considerable ability had immediately raised him to a
position of prominence in the house ; and after a couple of
sessions he was elected in caucus the deputy-leader of the
opposition. In this respect Meredith's rise had been only
less phenomenal than that of Blake between 1867 an d 1872.
Both had entered parliament as novices in politics, and
both had in a very short time placed themselves at the head
of their respective parties. As deputy-leader Meredith had
left little or nothing to be desired, and there was, therefore,
no question in 1879 as to who should assume the leadership
of the party.

Meredith was fortunate in having as his chief lieutenant a
man who had played a distinguished part in Canadian politics,
but whose fame has all too quickly fled. Alexander Morris,
the new deputy-leader of the opposition, had been the man
who conducted the pourparlers which led to the Great
Coalition in 1864 ; he had been minister of Inland Revenue
in Sir John A. Macdonald's government from 1869 to 1872 ;
and he had been lieutenant-governor of Manitoba from 1872
to 1877. In 1878, on his return to Ontario, Morris had been
induced to re-enter politics, and run for the seat in the
Ontario legislature which had just been vacated by Cameron.
He was elected, and immediately pressed into service as
Meredith's second-in-command. It was, of course, said about
him, as it had been said about M c Dougall, that he was am
bitious of gaining the leadership ; but Morris himself avowed
on the platform his willingness to serve under Meredith in
any capacity, ' either as cook or bottle washer.'

The elections for the fourth legislature of Ontario took

156 POLITICAL HISTORY

place on June 5, 1879. The platform on which the opposi
tion appealed to the country was the cry of economy. During
the previous sessions Meredith had attacked vigorously
what he described as the extravagance of the government.
He now undertook to show that the expenditure of the pro
vince was exceeding its revenue, and that the surplus was
rapidly dwindling. He quoted Sandfield Macdonald's remark
that ' Economy is the sheet anchor of the Federal Constitu
tion,' and he held up before the electors the bogey of direct
taxation. ' If we go on in this way,' he said, * nothing
can save us from direct taxation.' l We now know that in
1879 the day of direct taxation in Ontario was far off, but
at that time Meredith's serried rows of figures may have
looked convincing. Meredith himself studiously avoided any
charge of corruption against the ministers, but his sup
porters were not so scrupulous. ' Nepotism, jobbery, and
corruption * were all charged against the government : 2 in
a political pamphlet of the time, entitled The Ruling Families
of Ontario, may be seen the names of those relatives of
cabinet ministers who had obtained government berths ;
and they make, it must be admitted, a formidable array.
There is no doubt that the election was an anxious one for
the government. Sir John A. Macdonald, in the Dominion
elections of the year before, had swept the province on the
National Policy, and it was natural to expect that Mowat
would suffer from the afterwash of that victory. An elec
tion in Canada, however, as Sir John A. Macdonald was
wont to remark, is as uncertain as a horse-race ; and in the
event, Mowat's government was sustained by a considerably
increased majority. To explain adequately this result would
be no easy undertaking. Some of the electors may have
resented the attempt of the opposition to borrow a reflected
glory from the National Policy ; some of them may have
disagreed with the cheese-paring financial policy advocated
by Meredith ; but perhaps the greatest factor in the result
was the unfortunate change in the leadership of the opposi-

1 Speech at Richmond Hill, April 25, 1879.

J Letter on the Increasing Expenditure of Ontario : a campaign pamphlet pub
lished by the Hon. D. L. Macpherson.

MOWAT AND MEREDITH : PROVINCIAL RIGHTS 157

tion just before the election. For a political party to swop
horses when crossing a stream is almost certain to end in
disaster. As it was, almost the only comfort which the
opposition was able to extract from the elections was the
defeat administered by Morris to Mowat in East Toronto.
Mowat had tried to exclude Morris from the legislature, but
the result was a rebuff from the electors which cannot have
been pleasant.

The speech from the throne with which the session of

1880 was opened was one on which, as the Bystander said,
Eldon might have voted with Wilkes. Money was asked
for the construction of new parliament buildings ; the annual
number of amendments to the Municipal Act were promised ;
the house was asked to consider the question of timber
licences ; and so forth. Real party questions there seemed
to be none. Under these circumstances the government
and the opposition fell to fighting over the personal expenses
of the lieutenant-governor. The lieutenant-governor, D. A.
Macdonald, had with a small party made an official trip the
year before to New Ontario. The trip had been made at
the public expense ; and when the accounts in connection
with it were submitted to the house, there was discovered in
them an item for corkscrews. Over this item the opposi
tion made high holiday. The ' Corkscrew Brigade,' as the
lieutenant-governor's party became known, were denounced
in terms which made them famous through the country. It
was thought amusing when a member of the legislature who
had also been a member of the expedition was presented in
the house with a corkscrew and a bottle of Apollinaris water.
And it was only when the lieutenant-governor, whose feelings
may be better imagined than described, insisted on paying
$350 to cover his personal expenses that the unlovely incident
was allowed to close.

During the session of 1881 Mowat put the coping-stone
on his work of law reform. The Ontario Judicature Act of

1 88 1 completely remodelled the legal system of the province.
The distinction between the Courts of Common Law and the
Courts of Equity was abolished, and the Courts of Appeal,
Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Chancery were con-

158 POLITICAL HISTORY

solidated into one court, called the Supreme Court of Judi
cature for Ontario, which was to consist, however, of two
divisions, the Court of Appeal and the High Court of Justice.
In planning this reorganization Mowat had, of course, the
advantage of following the lines adopted in the English
Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875 ; yet the remarkable
success with which the act has worked speaks volumes for
Mowat's genius as a law reformer. The credit for the work
is almost wholly his ; he can have received little assistance
from his colleagues, none of whom were first-rate lawyers,
or from the house. What the average member in the house
thought of the bill was expressed in classic style by the
humorous Rosevear : ' For my part (he said) I don't under
stand one word about this bill. I have asked gentlemen of
the profession in this House if they understood it, and they
said they did not; and I do not know that the attorney-
general does. I believe the attorney-general means well
enough by the bill ; but he has been led away by some one
or other who has been posting him up, and he has got wrong.
... It 's my opinion, that the laymen might as well go out
into the lobby or into the smoking-room while the lawyers
are passing this act.' l

The session of 1882 saw some useful legislation placed
upon the statute-book. A bureau of Industries was estab
lished, in connection with the department of Agriculture ; a
new act was passed organizing Boards of Health throughout
the province ; and provision was made for free municipal
libraries. The session of 1883, however, produced little
of note. The principal government measures were the con
solidation of the Municipal Act and the Jurors' Acts, and a
number of statutes intended to facilitate the incorporation
of companies without the delay and expense of special acts.
That the government did not feel at all the press of public
business was evidenced by the fact that Mowat at this time
entertained not unfavourably for a while the idea of intro
ducing the system of biennial or alternative parliaments.

During all these sessions Meredith continued to level
against the government charges of financial extravagance :

1 Quoted in the Bystander, March 1880, pp. 124-5.

MOWAT AND MEREDITH : PROVINCIAL RIGHTS 159

on this ground, for instance, he opposed the large expendi
ture which they proposed to devote to the new parliament
buildings. He continued to advocate the repeal of the
Crooks Act and the Education Act. Occasionally he joined
battle with the government over the National Policy, a
subject which invaded the debates of the legislature with
curious persistency. But the chief battleground between the
government and the opposition, in this and in the ensuing
parliament, was the question of ' provincial rights.' The
relations existing between the Dominion and the provinces
under the British North America Act is a subject that belongs
rightly to the domain of constitutional law, and from that
aspect it will be found treated elsewhere in these volumes. 1
But in addition to being a constitutional question, it became
in Ontario a political issue perhaps the only real line of
demarcation which ever existed between the two traditional
parties. The view of the federal constitution entertained
by John Sandfield Macdonald, by M. C. Cameron, and by
W. R. Meredith, was the same as that held by Sir John A.
Macdonald : they all regarded the province as subordinate
to the Dominion. Sandfield Macdonald, and M c Dougall
later, described the provincial legislatures as ' merely enlarged
county councils ' ; and while he was in power, Sandfield
Macdonald, though not regardless of Ontario's rights, showed
no anxiety to encroach on the rights of the federal govern
ment. On the contrary, he believed that the greatest possible
harmony should exist between the federal and the provincial
governments : it was on this account that he was so often
accused of subserviency to Ottawa. Blake and Mowat, on
the other hand, contended that there should be no connection
between the federal and provincial governments,

' Harmony,' cry the Tories,

' 'Twixt us and Ottawa.'
Yes, let John A. be master,

And scorn the Federal Law.

Thus the Voter's Alphabet of 1886 ! Blake and Mowat re
garded the provincial legislature as sovereign within its

1 ' The Federal Constitution/ section iv.

i6o POLITICAL HISTORY

allotted sphere, and they resented any exercise or assertion
of federal authority over the province. Indeed, it might
almost be said that Mowat regarded the interests of the pro
vince as paramount over those of the Dominion. The situa
tion was analogous to that which had existed in the United
States : the liberals, like the democrats, were the advocates
of local or provincial rights ; the conservatives, like the
republicans, were the champions of federal rights.

It is not within the scope of this article to discuss in detail
the constitutional struggles over the interpretation of the
British North America Act which took place between Mowat
and the government of Sir John A. Macdonald. But some
thing must be said about the struggle in its broad outlines.
The first conflict which arose between Ontario and the
Dominion was over the act respecting Escheats and For
feitures, passed by the Ontario legislature in the session of
1874. This act was objected to by the Dominion minister
of Justice, Telesphore Fournier, on the ground that escheat
was a prerogative of the crown, and that the exercise of that
prerogative rested with the governor-general of Canada,
and not with the lieutenant-governor of a province. On
April 3, 1875, the Dominion government (a liberal govern
ment, it should be observed) disallowed the act, and Mowat
thereupon took the matter to law. The ' Escheats Case,'
as Mowat's action became known, ran the gamut of all the
courts until it reached the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council in England, and there judgment was finally ren
dered in favour of the Ontario government. This was
Mowat's first victory for provincial rights, a victory won
over a liberal government. The second conflict took place
over the * Crooks Act ' of 1876. The constitutionality of
this act was not questioned by the Mackenzie government,
but when Sir John A. Macdonald returned to power he
pronounced the act invalid, on the ground that the right to
regulate ' trade and commerce ' lay within the competency
of the Dominion. Speaking at a public meeting in York-
ville in 1882, he said that since Confederation his decision
as minister of Justice had often been given on constitutional
questions, and in no single case had his judgment been

MOWAT AND MEREDITH : PROVINCIAL RIGHTS 161

reversed. He believed the act was not worth the paper it
was written on, and he promised to pass a bill at Ottawa
returning to the municipalities the powers taken away from
them by the * Crooks Act.' 1 In the very next session, true to
his word, Sir John introduced the Liquor Licence Act of 1883,
better known as the ' M c Carthy Act.' The question of the
validity of this act was carried to the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council : it was found by their lordships that
the * McCarthy Act ' was ultra vires of the federal parliament,
and per contra that the ' Crooks Act ' was intra vires of the
provincial legislature. Since that time there has been no
question of the right of the provinces to regulate the sale of
liquor within their confines.

In regard to both these matters the opposition took up
the cudgels in favour of the federal government. But it
was over another measure, a government bill of the session
of 1 88 1, entitled a Bill to protect the Public Interest in Rivers
and Streams, that the battle -royal took place. On the
Mississippi River, an affluent of the Ottawa River, Peter
M c Laren, a wealthy lumberman of conservative leanings,
had built a dam and slide. This dam and slide had been used
by Boyd Caldwell and Co., lumbermen of liberal leanings,
with limits farther up the river, in floating down their logs.
M c Laren had obtained from Vice-Chancellor Proudfoot an
injunction preventing Boyd Caldwell and Co. from using the
dam and slide for the future. Mowat, considering the judg
ment of the vice-chancellor to be erroneous, undertook to
reverse the judgment by legislative enactment ; and it was
with this object that he introduced into the house the Rivers
and Streams Bill. In view of the fact that Caldwell's nephew
was a supporter of Mowat in the legislature, Mowat's bill
had a somewhat partisan aspect ; and it was opposed by
the opposition, Meredith moving that the bill was calcu
lated to interfere with important private interests without
making adequate compensation therefor. The opposition was
of no avail, for the bill was passed by a large government
majority ; but when the bill reached Ottawa, its disallow
ance was promptly recommended by the minister of Justice,

1 Quoted in Biggar, op. cit., p. 359.
VOL. XVII L

162 POLITICAL HISTORY

on the precise ground mentioned in Meredith's motion.
The power of disallowance vested in the Dominion govern
ment over provincial legislation has always been a fertile
source of controversy. That the power exists under the
British North America Act cannot be denied, but the grounds
on which it is to be exercised are not prescribed. It is
safe to say that Mowat, during his long official career,
sought persistently to reduce the federal power of disallow
ance to a nullity. If a provincial act were disallowed on
the ground of being ultra vires, Mowat was always ready to
carry the case to the law-courts, to which, it must be con
fessed, the proper appeal lay ; and if the act were disallowed
on the grounds of expediency and public policy, Mowat
always condemned the disallowance as an invasion of pro
vincial rights. This was the case in regard to the Rivers
and Streams Bill. Mowat contended that the bill was
entirely within the competency of the provincial legislature,
and that the Dominion government had no right to touch
it. He re-enacted it during the next session, and when it
was disallowed a second time, he re-enacted it a third time ;
whereupon it was again disallowed. During the whole of
this conflict the opposition under Meredith espoused the
cause of the Dominion government. With a courage deserv
ing of admiration it defended the power of disallowance in
an assembly where the defence of that power was bound to
weaken them in the country ; indeed, from a tactical point
of view, their attitude was probably an error in judgment.
Nor was their championship of federal rights of any avail.
In 1883 the case of M c Laren v. Caldwell, which had been
pursuing the even tenor of its way from court to court,
reached the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and
there judgment was given in favour of Caldwell. This
judgment made the Rivers and Streams Bill little more than
declaratory of the existing state of the law ; and when it
was re-enacted in 1884, the Dominion government allowed
it to become law. Thus Mowat achieved another victory
over the champions of federal rights ; though it should be
observed that, in the decision of the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council in M c Laren v. Caldwell, no judgment was

MOWAT AND MEREDITH: PROVINCIAL RIGHTS 163

rendered in regard to the exercise of the federal power of
disallowance.

Mention must be made, finally, of the dispute over the
boundary question. The northerly and westerly boundaries
of Ontario had never been very clearly defined ; and when
the North-West Territory was acquired by the Dominion
in 1869 from the Hudson's Bay Company, it became neces
sary to ascertain the boundary-line between the territory
of the Dominion and that of Ontario. After protracted
negotiations three arbitrators were appointed to investigate
the evidence available and to find the true boundaries of
Ontario. The decision arrived at by the arbitrators in 1878
was a complete corroboration of the claims of Ontario to
the vast hinterland of the province north and west of Lake
Superior. The effect of the award was to make Ontario
twice as large again as the Dominion government contended
it was. The Mackenzie government, which had appointed
the arbitrators, was prepared to ratify the award by legisla
tion ; but in 1878 the Mackenzie government was defeated,
and Sir John A. Macdonald, on his return to power, flatly
refused to regard the award as binding. There was, he said,
in the disputed territory not one stick of timber, one acre of
land, or one lump of lead, iron, or gold that did not belong
to the Dominion. The lands had been acquired, he argued,
by the Dominion from the original Indian owners. His con
tention was not, however, borne out by the courts. The
title to these lands was set at rest by the Indian Title Case,
judgment in which was given in 1888 in favour of the pro
vince. Thus the dispute ended all along the line in a victory
for Mowat, who had himself argued some of the cases before
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Meredith and his followers may have been ill-advised in
defending, as they did, the course of the Dominion govern
ment regarding the boundary dispute. It is difficult not to
convict Sir John A. Macdonald, in this regard at least, of
undue subserviency to the French-Canadian vote. But it
should be remembered that there was needed in the Ontario
legislature at that time some one to champion the cause
of federal rights. It was an unpopular cause and a losing

164 POLITICAL HISTORY

fight ; yet for that very reason it needed a spokesman.
Mowat was a great, perhaps too great a constitutional
lawyer : except in the case of Clarke's Prohibition Bill and
the Orange Bills (and here his view was perhaps clouded by
considerations of policy), his judgment in regard to the
interpretation of the British North America Act seems to
have been infallible. Yet he did not seem to see that by his
belligerent championship of provincial rights, by his magni
fication of the province at the expense of the Dominion, he
was doing what in him lay to wreck the work of Confedera
tion. In the United States the tendency since 1867 has been
toward strengthening the federal government ; in Canada
it has been, thanks to Sir Oliver Mowat and the liberal
party, toward weakening the federal and strengthening the
provincial government.

VI
MOWAT AND MEREDITH : THE CATHOLIC VOTE

r I ^HE year 1883 saw some important changes in Mowat's
cabinet and an altered aspect in the political situation.
In the first place, Mowat lost the services of both
S. C. Wood and Adam Crooks. Wood, who had been pro
vincial treasurer since 1877, resigned his office in order to
devote himself to his business interests. He was succeeded
in the treasurership by James Young, the member for South
Brant ; but Young, unfortunately, was compelled, owing to
ill-health, to retire from office a few months later. He in
turn was succeeded by A. M. Ross, the member for West
Huron, who remained provincial treasurer until 1890. On the
other hand, Crooks was compelled, owing to a disease of the
mind to which he had fallen victim, to resign the portfolio
of minister of Education. The unfortunate minister had
been for some time in failing health, but it was not easy to fill
his place. The portfolio of Education was offered first to
Principal Grant of Queen's College, Kingston, but that free
lance of Canadian public life valued his independence too

MOWAT AND MEREDITH : THE CATHOLIC VOTE 165

much to accept it. 1 Mowat had in the end to go to the
Dominion House of Commons before he was able to get a
suitable man. George (afterwards Sir George) W. Ross,
whom he induced to leave the House of Commons at Ottawa
to become minister of Education for Ontario, had been first
a school-teacher and then a school inspector ; he was there
fore not unqualified for his new post. Ross administered
the department of Education from 1883 to 1899, when he
became prime minister of Ontario.

The elections of 1883 brought Meredith nearer to the
Treasury seats than he ever came before or after. At the
polls the government's majority was cut down from twenty-
eight to ten, and in the hearts of many conservatives the
hope rose high that the death-knell of the Mowat govern
ment had been sounded. The factors in an election can
never be ascertained with mathematical accuracy, and it
would be difficult to find any one cause to which the result
of the 1883 election could be attributed. With some of the
electors Meredith's persistent arraignment of the govern
ment on the score of financial extravagance may have weighed;
others may have been swayed by his continued advocacy
of the return of liquor licences to the control of the muni
cipalities and the reorganization of the department of Edu
cation under a non-partisan head. The Bystander traced
the result to the intervention of the Dominion government
in favour of the opposition. ' The Ontario Election,' it said,
' was a Dominion battle, fought on a local field : the whole
artillery of Ottawa was brought into play, and its fire told
heavily on the result.' 2 But perhaps the most notable, if
not the most important, factor in the election was the oppo
sition's bid for the Roman Catholic vote. For some time
it had been plain that the government owed part of its
strength at the polls to the liquor vote and influence and to
the Roman Catholic vote. To detach the liquor interests
from their allegiance to the government, it was realized by
the opposition managers, was a hopeless task, since the
licensed victuallers were firmly attached to the party in

1 W: L. Grant and Frederick Hamilton, Principal Grant, pp. 261-9.

2 The Bystander, April 1883, p. 80.

166 POLITICAL HISTORY

power, whether that party were red or blue. There seemed,
however, to be some hope that a vigorous campaign might
succeed in conciliating some of the Roman Catholic voters.
With this object in view there was prepared by the conser
vative organizers a pamphlet which was entitled Facts for
the Irish Electors, and which was an appeal to the Roman
Catholic Irish to vote for Meredith on sectarian grounds.
' The Catholics of this province,' declared the brochure, ' can
never have any confidence in the Hon. Oliver Mowat, who
has always been their enemy,' whereas Meredith had been
their friend. 'It is necessary,' continued the pamphlet,
' for our own good, that we should all know the party that
has been the faithful sentinel of our interests, in order that
we Catholics may act on the good old maxim of one good
turn deserving another.' Whether Meredith was in any
sense responsible for the publication of this pamphlet, it is
difficult to say. It was openly charged in the election cam
paign that Meredith had seen and revised the proof-sheets
of the pamphlet, and the charge was not publicly denied.
Certainly the pamphlet was not disavowed during the cam
paign by the conservative leaders, but was allowed to do its
deadly work. Meredith, it must be confessed, was not the
first to angle for the Roman Catholic vote in Ontario ; that
honour had belonged to George Brown, and after him to
Oliver Mowat ; but it cannot be denied that the Facts for
the Irish Electors constituted a dark stain on the record of the
conservative party under Meredith's leadership.

The outstanding event of the fifth legislature of Ontario
was the ' Bribery Plot ' of 1884. It had been known for a
number of years at least that corrupt influences had been
at work in the legislature : the Rykert investigation of 1874
had revealed as much. But nothing so sensational was ex
pected as the disclosures of March 17, 1884. These amounted,
in fact, to the revelation of a plot to defeat the govern
ment by buying up some of the government supporters.
When the house met, two of the members, Robert M c Kim
of West Wellington and W. D. Balfour of South Essex,
handed over to the speaker large sums of money which had
been paid them to induce them to vote against the govern-

MOWAT AND MEREDITH : THE CATHOLIC VOTE 167

ment ; and other members swore they had been approached
with similar corrupt offers. ' The brawling brood of bribers,'
to quote the vigorous phrase which C. F. Fraser was reported
to have applied to them in the debate, were Christopher
Bunting, managing editor of the Mail, Edward Meek, a
Toronto barrister, F. S. Kirkland, a Wisconsin lawyer, and
one or two subordinate agents. The charges were preferred
first of all before the committee on privileges and elections,
and then before a commission of judges. The finding of the
judges was to a large extent a corroboration of the charges.
Part of the bribery seems to have been of a commercial rather
than a political nature, but there seems also to have been
an attempt on the part of Bunting and his friends to change
the course of Ontario politics by corrupt means. The bribers
were committed for trial, but in the assizes for the county
of York they were acquitted, largely owing to the fact that
the judge, Sir Adam Wilson, charged strongly in their favour.
It need hardly be added that there was no evidence connecting
Meredith or Morris in the slightest way with the bribery. 1

Of the legislation passed during this legislature details
would be tedious. Important amendments, in the direction
of Local Option, were introduced into the ' Crooks Act ' ;
an act was passed enabling married women to hold property ;
the Municipal Act was amended to permit widows and un
married women to vote at municipal elections, if they pos
sessed the necessary qualification in regard to real property
or income ; amendments were made to the Election Law, and
an act was passed for the better prevention of corrupt and
illegal practices at elections. Some of these measures, of
course, were contested by the opposition, but it must have
been because they felt it was the duty of an opposition to
oppose. Party principles at stake there were as a rule none :
' On these measures a worshipper of Charles I might have
voted with a follower of Karl Marx.'

It might have been expected that in the elections of 1886
the swing of the pendulum would have brought Meredith
into power. Mowat had not given him much of an oppor-

1 Clarke, op. cit., chap. xxi. : ' The Bribery Case.' Clarke was speaker of the
legislature at the time of the revelations.

168 POLITICAL HISTORY

tunity to strike out a clear-cut line of policy in the house,
but the platform which he formulated during the campaign
of 1886 was one that should have appealed strongly to the
country. It was not in any sense a tory or conservative
platform : Meredith had by this time discovered that toryism
is not a suitable creed for a party in opposition, and he had
almost inevitably begun to adopt the language of radicalism.
Among other things he advocated, for instance, manhood
suffrage, the secret ballot, and the enlargement of the powers
of municipal councils. Under Meredith, indeed, the conser
vative party drifted far from its original moorings ; it took
on something of the aspect of that tory democracy which,
under Disraeli and Lord Randolph Churchill, had arisen
across the sea.

The issue on which the election was fought, however,
was not the official platform of Meredith. It was once
more the Roman Catholic question. Since 1883 the Mowat
government had spared no pains to confirm the Roman
Catholics in their attachment to the liberal party. That
there was actually a concordat between Mowat and Arch
bishop Lynch, as the Mail avowed, may perhaps be doubted ;
but that some sort of understanding existed between some
members of Mowat's cabinet and some high officials of the
Roman Catholic Church, one is tempted to believe. Cer
tainly ' A Bystander ' did not dismiss the idea as absurd.
' He would delicately hint to Mr Mowat,' he said, ' that,
though Prime Minister, he does not hold what we may call
the Catholic portfolio, and that when under Pitt's govern
ment Dundas managed Scotland, there were probably some
little matters of detail which were better known to Dundas
than to Pitt.' 1 In 1883 the opposition had made a bid for
Roman Catholic support ; in 1886 it made a complete right
about-face, and raised the ' No Popery ' cry. In this course
it was not followed by its leader. Meredith pronounced
himself in favour of religious equality, but he refused to join
in a ' No Popery ' crusade, which he identified with ' the
Protestant horse bestridden of yore by George Brown.' In
this regard Meredith's position must have been an extremely

1 The Week, November 4, 1886.

MOWAT AND MEREDITH : THE CATHOLIC VOTE 169

difficult one. It was only four years since the Facts for the
Irish Electors had gone forth into the world, and it was
well known that the conservative government at Ottawa was
largely dependent upon the Roman Catholic vote for its
support. Unless, therefore, Meredith was prepared, on the
one hand, to cast consistency to the winds, and, on the other
hand, to cut the provincial conservative party adrift from
the Dominion party, his hands were tied. And yet his whole
party, in the press and on the platform, was in full cry after
the Roman Catholics.

The result of the elections was probably never in doubt.
The ambiguous position in which the ' No Popery ' cry
placed Meredith was bound to be a source of weakness to the
party, and the means which an element in the conservative
ranks adopted of driving home the cry were not above
reproach. Especially was this true of the agitation about
the ' Ross Bible.' The ' Ross Bible ' was a selection of
Scripture readings for use in the public schools, authorized
by Ross, the minister of Education. The book had been
submitted to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto for
his approval, just as it had been submitted to prominent
dignitaries of the other churches ; and the archbishop, who
was somewhat of a scholar, had suggested the substitution of
' which ' for ' who ' in the Lord's Prayer. On the strength of
this trifling revision it was charged that the book was the
offspring of Roman Catholic intrigue, and that the words of
our Lord had been revised by the Roman Catholic archbishop.
' The Archbishop of Toronto,' it was said, ' had been per
mitted to dictate the nature of the religious teaching given
in the public schools, even to the extent of mutilating and
garbling the Bible.' * And one opposition orator waxed
profane over the subject : ' Damn it,' he said, ' what we want
is the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible.'
The answer of the electorate to this sort of campaign was the
triumphant return of Mowat with a majority in the house
of about twenty-eight ; and parties thus reverted to the
position in which they had been before 1883.

One would have thought that this result would have dis-

1 An opposition campaign document quoted in Biggar, op. cit., p. 476.

170 POLITICAL HISTORY

couraged the conservatives from raising the ' No Popery ' cry
again, yet in the elections of 1890 and 1894 the Roman
Catholic bogey was once more trotted to the fore. In 1890
the country had been stirred up by the passing of the Jesuit
Estates Bill in Quebec. This was a bill, passed by the
Quebec legislature, compensating the revived Jesuit order
for the loss of their property at the time of the dissolution
of the order in the eighteenth century. The idea of public
money and public land going to maintain a religious order in
Quebec set the Protestant population of Canada in an uproar.
There was formed in Ontario, by D' Alton M c Carthy and some
other prominent Protestants, an association known as the
Equal Rights Association, which had as its immediate aim
the disallowance of the Jesuit Estates Act by the federal
authorities, but which had as its ultimate object the abolition
of all special privileges granted to the Roman Catholics in
Canada, and the treatment of all religious denominations on
the same basis. In Ontario, for instance, the separate school
system had been a rock of offence to many people ; and it
was only the fact that separate schools were guaranteed to
the Roman Catholics of Ontario by the British North America
Act that had prevented an agitation for their abolition before
1890. The Jesuit Estates Bill, however, proved sufficient
to set the heather ablaze, and the Equal Rights Association
came out in favour of the abolition of the separate school
system in Ontario. Mowat was known to be in favour of the
continuation of the system ; he had opposed separate schools
at the time of Confederation, but he was prepared loyally
to administer the compact entered into at that time ; he
refused to go behind the British North America Act and
starve the separate schools out, nor was he willing to join in
an agitation for the abolition of the separate schools by the
imperial parliament. That, he contended, would be a viola
tion of the Confederation agreement. The attitude adopted
by Mowat almost inevitably drove Meredith into the arms
of the Equal Rights Association. Divesting himself of his
scruples against an anti-Roman Catholic agitation, Meredith
came out finally in favour of the conditional abolition of
separate schools, and in direct opposition to the pretensions

MOWAT AND MEREDITH : THE CATHOLIC VOTE 171

of the Roman Catholic Church. A kindred subject on which
he also took strong ground was the use of the French lan
guage in the public schools of the province. In 1889 a
motion had been introduced in the Ontario legislature con
demning the Mowat government for its toleration of bilingual
schools in the French-Canadian districts. The motion was
voted down, but it bore fruit in a royal commission to
investigate the allegations made in the legislature regarding
the use of the French language in the schools. The com
mission's report revealed the existence of nearly one hundred
schools in the province in which French text-books, as well
as English, were in use, and the only defence that the com
mission offered was expediency. Meredith took the ground
that the English language was the language of the province,
and he condemned, in terms that left no doubt as to his
meaning, the use of the French language in the schools.

To do this must have required no small amount of
courage. The conservative party at Ottawa was largely
dependent for its voting strength on the Bleu element in
Quebec ; and in taking the attitude he did, Meredith cut
himself off from Sir John A. Macdonald. ' The tie,' exclaimed
'A Bystander,' ' between the Dominion and Provincial parties
has finally been broken.' It is strange that, in Orange
Ontario, Meredith's obviously sincere stand did not gain for
him more votes than it did. In the elections the Mowat
government was sustained by a majority very nearly as large
as that of 1886, a majority of twenty-three members in a
house of eighty-eight. The Equal Rights cry must have
won for Meredith a number of Protestant votes, but these
were evidently not numerous enough to counterbalance the
solid Roman Catholic and French-Canadian vote polled by
Mowat.

In 1894 the agitation against the Roman Catholics was
taken up by what was known as the Protestant Protective
Association. The ' P.P.A.' was an association which repre
sented the extremest and most intolerant type of Protestant
bigotry. It had come into Canada from the United States,
where it had first arisen ; and it had no connection with
the official conservative party. Yet in the public mind

i 7 2 POLITICAL HISTORY

the two were, unfortunately, not entirely dissociated ; and
the opposition leader had to bear the blame, doubtless, of
some of the ' P. P. A.'s ' lucubrations. An illustration of
the campaign in which the ' P. P. A.' indulged itself may
be taken from an election broadside of 1894, entitled An
Eye-Opener for Ontario Electors. ' The most brazen act of
Romanism in this Province,' ran the handbill, * was when
Hon. Fraser who had charge of the building of the Parlia
ment Buildings had a large white cross painted on the ceiling
of the Legislative Chamber. This white cross is so ingeni
ously worked into the fresco of the ceiling that at first it
cannot be noticed, but a closer look will show it. It is
directly over the table occupied by the clerk of the House.
It was this way Rome desired to show that she placed her
stamp on all provincial legislation.' Meredith denied all
connection with this sort of thing, but it must, neverthe
less, have done a certain amount of damage.

The platform on which Meredith appealed to the country
was not materially different from that of previous elections.
He still advocated the repeal of the Education Act and the
' Crooks Act,' the conditional abolition of separate schools,
and the conservation of the forests. He pronounced himself
in favour of the secret ballot in elections, as opposed to the
numbered ballot introduced by the Mowat government ;
and in this connection he came forward again as the friend
of the people. ' The world,' he said, ' has moved faster than
the Liberals, and the Conservatives are now the real pro
gressive democratic party.' x Much was made of the alleged
unfairness of the Redistribution Bill which had been passed
just before the election ; and it was remarkable that the
government had no better defence to offer than the counter
charge that the conservative government at Ottawa had
begun the practice of gerrymandering the country. But the
real issue was the record of the government. Sir Oliver
Mowat (as Mowat was now styled) had still about him an
able and tried cabinet, whereas Meredith, although himself
a man who stood very high in the estimation of both parties,
was surrounded by few men who seemed to be of cabinet

1 The Empire, December 6, 1893.

MOWAT AND MEREDITH : THE CATHOLIC VOTE 173

rank. The Mowat government had carried to completion
its work of franchise reform and law reform. In 1888 it
had carried through the house the Manhood Suffrage Act,
and shortly it was to put the coping-stone on the reorganized
legal system with the Judicature Act of 1894. In 1890 an
important concession had been made to the temperance
sentiment of the country by an amendment to the Licence
Act by which there was restored to the municipalities the
right of local option which had existed under the Municipal
Act of 1866. By this act the council of any municipality
other than a county might, with the assent of the electors
thereof, pass by-laws prohibiting the sale by retail of liquors
in any tavern or other house of public entertainment, and
prohibiting altogether the sale thereof in shops and places
other than houses of public entertainment. In 1892 an
important act had been passed imposing succession duties
on all estates, passing either by will or intestacy, valued at
$100,000 or over. During the election campaign of 1894
attention was called to the labour legislation of the Mowat
government the Mechanics' Lien Act, the Employers'
Liability Act, the Factories Act, the Work and Wages Act,
the Co-operative Associations Act, the Trades' Arbitration
Act, and similar measures, all of which made a legitimate
appeal to the support of the working classes.

The contest of 1894 was of a somewhat unusual character,
owing to the number of independents who ran, and to the
entrance of a ' third party ' into the provincial arena. This
was the party known, rather stupidly, as the ' Patrons of
Industry.' The Patrons, as they were called tout court,
were representatives of the farming class. Their platform
was largely concerned with Dominion politics, but there were
one or two planks in it that had reference to provincial
politics ; and at the nominations there were no fewer than
forty-eight Patrons who presented themselves as candidates
for election to the legislature. The rise of the Patrons intro
duced an uncertain element into the contest, since in most
of the constituencies there were three-cornered contests ;
but when the votes were counted it was found that Sir Oliver
Mowat had a majority of eight to ten over the combined vote

174 POLITICAL HISTORY

of the Patrons, the independents, and the regular opposi
tion. The Patrons, moreover, had in nearly all cases been
originally liberals, and before the dissolution of the legis
lature most of them had returned to the fold. They repre
sented distinctly class interests ; and almost the only plank
in their platform which had reference to provincial politics
was the demand that all county officials should be elected
by the county instead of being nominated by the provincial
government. Their disappearance, therefore, as a distinct
party, was neither unnatural nor undesirable.

VII
MOWAT AND MARTER: PROHIBITION

THE election of 1894 was Meredith's last appeal to the
electors. A few months later he accepted from his
friends at Ottawa the chief justiceship of the Common
Pleas Division of the High Court of Ontario, and his seat
in the legislature became vacant. He had been deputy-
leader and then leader of the opposition for nearly twenty
years, and his failure to attain office during those years had
been due to no lack of ability or courage on his part. He
was given by Sir Oliver Mowat few openings, but those
he was given he made the most of. It is difficult to see
how, with the material he had at his command, he could
have improved on his campaign platforms. Meredith,
moreover, was a man who bore everywhere the highest
character ; few men have ever lived through over twenty
years of political life with so stainless a reputation. His
continued exclusion from office is a little difficult to explain :
it may have been due partly to his lack of that personal
magnetism which stamps the greatest political leaders ; but
one is tempted to believe that it was also due to the extra
ordinary hold which the Mowat government had on the
country, and the fact that there were, as 'A Bystander ' said,
at that time ' more Grits than Tories in Ontario, just as there
were more Little-Endians than Big-Endians in Lilliput.'

MOWAT AND MARTER : PROHIBITION 175

The successor of Meredith in the leadership of the opposi
tion was George Frederick Marter, the member for North
Toronto. Marter was a politician of blameless character
and genial manner, but his education had been commercial
rather than legal, and he was the first to realize that, in
accepting the leadership of the opposition, he had put himself
in a false position. In dealing with the details of legislation,
for instance, he found himself no match for Sir Oliver Mowat.
Marter was, moreover, a strong advocate of the prohibition
of the sale of liquor in the province, and in his view on this
question he was unable to carry his party with him. In
April 1896, therefore, after two sessions as leader of the
opposition, he handed in his resignation to the caucus, and
not long afterwards retired from public life. His resigna
tion can only be described as in every sense creditable to
himself.

The question on which Marter differed from his party,
the question of prohibition, has been the rock on which more
than one administration in Ontario has nearly come to grief.
Sandfield Macdonald and Edward Blake escaped it, but
from the beginning of Sir Oliver Mowat's regime up to the
present day it has been a burning question in provincial
politics. The trouble has been that it has cut right across
existing party divisions, and the leaders in both camps have
been embarrassed to know what to do. Sir Oliver Mowat
was at first sceptical regarding the power of the province to
prohibit the sale of liquor, but he professed himself from
the first ready to go as far in the direction of prohibition as
the British North America Act and public opinion would
allow him. As an earnest of his goodwill he introduced the
Licence Act and its amendments. When he was put to the
test, however, he was found to have a somewhat equivocal
attitude. In 1893 Marter introduced into the house a pro
hibition bill similar to that which had been introduced
twenty years before by Dr Clarke of Norfolk. A large deputa
tion of prohibitionists waited on the premier asking him to
support the bill. Sir Oliver Mowat replied that, in view of
the doubt as to whether a prohibition bill would be ultra
vires of the provincial legislature, the government could not

176 POLITICAL HISTORY

at that time support Marter's bill. The solicitude of Sir
Oliver on this occasion regarding the validity of Marter's
bill may have been dictated by sound motives, but it sat
ill on the uncompromising champion of provincial rights.
Here, at any right, was one quarter where the prime minister
of Ontario was not anxious to have the jurisdiction of the
province extended. In order to discover, however, just
what demand for prohibition there was, the government
introduced a bill entitled the Prohibition Plebiscite Act,
which made provision for the holding of a plebiscite on the
question of the prohibition, by competent authority, of the
importation, manufacture, and sale of intoxicating liquor as
a beverage in the province. The vote was taken at the
municipal elections of 1894, and resulted in a majority for
prohibition of 81,769 out of a total vote of about 300,000.
This vote removed all doubt as to whether prohibition was
demanded by the people. Sir Oliver Mowat had already
moved in the direction of getting a judgment from the Privy
Council regarding the jurisdiction of the province in regard
to prohibition, and when a deputation waited on him in the
spring of 1894, he made the following statement :

If the decision of the Privy Council should be that
the province has the jurisdiction to pass a prohibitory
liquor law as to sale, I will introduce such a Bill in the
following Session, if I am then at the head of the Govern
ment. If the decision of the Privy Council is that the
province has jurisdiction to pass only a partial pro
hibitive liquor law, I will introduce such a prohibi
tive bill as the decision will warrant, unless the partial
prohibitive power is so limited as to be ineffective from
a temperance standpoint. 1

Before the decision of the Privy Council, however, was
rendered, Sir Oliver Mowat was no longer the head of the
government. In the summer of 1896 the government of
Sir Charles Tupper was defeated at the polls, and Wilfrid
(afterwards Sir Wilfrid) Laurier, on whom the governor-
general called, was anxious to form the strongest liberal
government available. He offered portfolios to tried men

1 Biggar, op. cit., pp. 538-9-

MOWAT AND MARTER : PROHIBITION 177

in the provincial political fields, and Mowat was asked to
undertake the administration of Justice in the new cabinet.
Marter had resigned the leadership of the opposition a few
months before : now Sir Oliver Mowat resigned the leader
ship of the government, and thus the way was cleared for
other men.

Sir Oliver Mowat was prime minister of Ontario for
nearly twenty-five years, a longer period of office than has
fallen to the lot of any other first minister in the history of
constitutional government in the British Empire. During
this time he administered the affairs of the province with
great honesty and efficiency, so that Ontario presented the
spectacle of one of the best-governed territories in the world ;
and he placed on the statute-book a mass of sound and
useful legislation which was a model of conservative reform.
By a series of gradual extensions of the franchise he intro
duced manhood suffrage ; he reformed the electoral laws and
introduced the use of the ballot ; he unified the courts of
law and equity ; he cheapened and simplified legal pro
ceedings ; he carried out repeatedly the codification of the
statute law, and he consolidated the municipal law ; he
curbed and regulated the liquor traffic ; he bettered the
legal status of married women ; he went far toward protect
ing the rights of wage-earners ; he introduced the principle
of the graded succession duty. His policy in regard - to
education, in regard to timber grants, and in regard to
bilingual schools may not meet now with universal approval.
It must be regarded as unfortunate that, in his struggles
with the Dominion, he laid such undue emphasis on pro
vincial rights. That he made mistakes, and serious mistakes,
it would be folly to deny ; but the rarity of this occurrence
is well illustrated in the difficulty the opposition had in
formulating election platforms. The only serious charge
that was ever brought against Sir Oliver Mowat was that
he sometimes closed his eyes to things going on about him
which it was not convenient for him to see. He had early
described himself as a ' Christian Statesman ' ; but he was
also a practical politician, and actions which would have
seemed pardonable in Sir John A. Macdonald seemed

VOL. XVII M

178 POLITICAL HISTORY

reprehensible in him. The political managements of which
he was occasionally guilty do not, however, seem to have
weighed heavily with the electorate ; and at the end of his
regime he was probably as strong in the country as ever
before. According to a striking passage in the Bystander in
1890 :

Mr Mowat occupies in the Province a position some
thing like that of Sir John Macdonald in the Dominion :
he has long been in possession of power, has filled the
Province with his appointees, has redistributed the
representation at his pleasure, and has all the means
of influence in his hands. The Catholic vote he is
allowed to use, turn about with Sir John, by an arrange
ment very convenient to both of them, though rather
perplexing to their respective organists. A ministry
thus intrenched and wielding the patronage is not to
be overturned by any minor charges of misgovernment,
such as tampering with licenses or jobbery about regis-
trarships. It can be overturned only by the leverage
of a great question appealing strongly to the interest
or the sentiment of the people. 1

It is, however, a characteristic of provincial politics in
Canada that such a question does not often emerge to view.

VIII
HARDY, ROSS, AND WHITNEY

WHAT remains of the political history of the province,
coming as it does perilously near present-day
politics, may be briefly narrated. With the dis
appearance of Sir Oliver Mowat and G. F. Marter in 1896 the ,,
reins passed into other hands. A. S. Hardy, the commissioner
of Crown Lands, was called upon by the lieutenant-governor,
Sir George Kirkpatrick, to form an administration ; and
the conservatives chose as the leader of the opposition James
(afterwards Sir James) Pliny Whitney. The administration
that Hardy formed was merely a reorganization of the

1 The Bystander, January 1890, p. 108.

HARDY, ROSS, AND WHITNEY 179

cabinet of Sir Oliver Mowat. Hardy took Sir Oliver's place
as attorney-general ; John (afterwards Sir John) M. Gibson,
who had been provincial secretary since 1889, took Hardy's
place as commissioner of Crown Lands ; and Elihu J. Davis,
the member for North York, was taken into the cabinet as
provincial secretary. For the rest the portfolios remained
unchanged. William Harty, who had succeeded C. F.
Fraser as commissioner of Public Works in 1892 ; Richard
Harcourt, who had succeeded A. M. Ross in the treasurer-
ship in 1890 ; John Dryden, who had been minister of Agri
culture (a portfolio created in 1888) since 1890 ; G. W. Ross,
who had been minister of Education since 1883 ; and E. H.
Bronson, who had been taken into the cabinet without port
folio in 1890 all these retained their offices unchanged.

As prime minister Hardy scarcely had a chance to show
his hand. In 1898 he had to brave the vortex of a general
election, and in 1899 he was forced, owing to the malady
that brought him the same year to his grave, to retire from
public life. The elections made it clear, however, that he
had not the confidence of the country in the same way that
Sir Oliver Mowat had had it. At the polls his majority of
twenty-five or more was cut down to something in the neigh
bourhood of six, and two of his cabinet ministers, Gibson
and Dryden, were defeated in their home constituencies.
The issue on which the election turned is not immediately
clear. Probably the cry that it was time for a change
weighed with the electorate, and the retirement of Sir
Oliver Mowat from the scene seemed to offer an opportune
moment for such a change. Perhaps also the shrill cries of
bribery and corruption to which the Mail and Empire was
already giving vent were beginning to tell in the country.
Curiously enough, one of the chief charges which the opposi
tion hurled against the government was the same charge of
which Blake had made so much between 1867 and 1871.
Hardy was accused of being in league with the Laurier
government at Ottawa, and the opposition took strong
ground against the existence of any connection between the
Dominion and the provincial governments. Thus the whirli
gig of time had brought its revenge, and the position of the

i8o POLITICAL HISTORY

two political parties was reversed. There could be no
better illustration than this of the empty and meaningless
character of provincial party politics.

In 1899 G. W. Ross was called upon to form an ad
ministration. In the reorganization of the cabinet which
followed Ross took the office of provincial treasurer, Gibson
became attorney -general, J. R. Stratton entered the cabinet
as provincial secretary, F. R. Latchford as commissioner of
Public Works, and J. T. Garrow as a minister without port
folio. The other members of the cabinet remained as they
were. Had Ross come into power under other circumstances,
he might have gone down to history as a great Canadian
statesman. His administration of the department of Educa
tion from 1883 to 1899 na d not, it is true, endeared him to
many who had the interests of higher education in Ontario
at heart ; but he was a man with a wide horizon and the
gift of eloquence. Unfortunately, the situation which he
inherited in 1899 was one that would have doomed any man
to impotence and defeat. The liberal party had already
been in power longer than was good for it ; there had gathered
about it an army of ' heelers ' and hangers-on whose existence
was a menace to political purity ; and already during Hardy's
premiership there had been, especially in connection with
the West Elgin by-election of 1899, some election frauds
which Ross himself characterized as ' gross irregularities.'
The result was that the confidence of the electorate was
gradually withdrawn from the liberal party, and the six years
of Ross's regime were a continuous struggle for existence.

In 1902 there was held a general election. In this election
Ross showed his progressive spirit by proclaiming a new
policy for the party, the policy of ' Building up Ontario.'
The platform on which he appealed to the country was the
opening up and surveying of the newer parts of the province,
the building of the Timiskaming Railway, and the develop
ment and exploitation of the province's hitherto neglected
resources. It was a good cry, but it barely succeeded in
saving the government from defeat. Ross went to the
country with a majority of ten behind him ; he came back
with a majority of two or three.

HARDY, ROSS, AND WHITNEY 181

The position of the Ross government in 1902 was not
unlike that in which the Sandfield Macdonald government
found itself after the elections of 1871. Both governments
had very narrow majorities to rely on ; in both cases there
were by-elections pending ; and there are signs that Ross
attempted to put into practice some of the devices which
Sir John A. Macdonald urged upon Sandfield Macdonald.
The offer, for instance, of the speakership was made to one
of the conservative members, Dr R6aume of North Essex,
an offer which Dr Reaume declined with some publicity.
More fortunate, or more adroit, than Sandfield Macdonald,
Ross succeeded in surviving two sessions ; but it was only
to suffer in the end crushing defeat.

The causes of the downfall of the government were in the
main two : first, Ross's policy in regard to prohibition ; and
second, the charges of corruption which were levelled against
his administration. In early days Ross had been one of
the idols of the temperance party ; he had been one of the
most eloquent and enthusiastic advocates of prohibition in
the province. But the responsibilities of office had somewhat
modified his views. The difficulty of bringing his party into
line on the question, the danger of going ahead of public
opinion, the uncertainty as to whether a prohibition law
could be strictly enforced all these things began to weigh
with him. In 1901 the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council at last rendered its decision in regard to the right
of the provinces to prohibit the sale of spirituous liquors.
The decision was an unwelcome shock to the Ross govern
ment, because it pronounced the power of prohibition to
be entirely within the competence of the provincial legis
lature ; and both Mowat and Ross had promised to go as
far in the direction of prohibition as the decision of the Privy
Council would allow them. In view of these pledges Ross
should either have passed a prohibition bill, or he should
have resigned from the leadership of the party. But instead
of adopting either of these courses, he introduced a prohibition
bill which required a referendum to the people before it
became law, and which required, moreover, not a bare
majority, but a two-thirds majority, to carry it. The refer-

182 POLITICAL HISTORY

endum took place in December 1902 ; and although a large
majority was polled in favour of the bill, the bill failed to reach
the required two-thirds majority by only a few hundred
votes. Great was the indignation of the temperance people
at this result. Within sight of their goal, they had been
balked by the evasions of Ross ; and in the elections of 1905
there is no doubt that many temperance men voted against
Ross out of sheer revenge. They could not hope to get more
out of the conservative party than out of the liberal, but
they were anxious that Ross should feel the weight of their
anger. At the same time, Ross had gone so far in the direction
of prohibition that he completely lost the support of the
licensed victuallers ; and the extraordinary spectacle was
seen in the election of the temperance people and the liquor
people going hand in hand to the polls.

The other chief cause of Ross's downfall was to be found
in the charges of corruption levelled against his government.
The catalogue of electoral crimes of which the agents and
adherents of the Ross government were guilty was an un
savoury one : bribery, intimidation, ballot - box plugging,
personation, all these were repeatedly indulged in, especially
in the all-important by-elections. It cannot be contended
that these irregularities were confined to the liberal agents ;
the conservatives were just as bad, if not worse. And the
growing prevalence in ' saw-offs ' in election petitions re
flected as little credit on the managers of the opposition as
on those of the government. But there was a widespread
feeling in the country that the Ross government had not done
all it might to bring the offenders to justice. The famous
apology of Attorney-General Gibson, ' I am not a policeman,'
uttered as it was in connection with the infamous personation
frauds at Sault Ste Marie, did not seem to the man in the
street to betray a fitting state of mind in the law-officer of the
crown. Nor were these election frauds the last arrow in the
opposition quiver. On the top of these scandals there came,
at the beginning of the session of 1903, the highly sensational
revelations of Robert Gamey, the conservative member for
Manitoulin. Gamey, at the first opportunity, rose in the
house, and displaying $3000 in bank bills, avowed that he

HARDY, ROSS, AND WHITNEY 183

had been given them by the government as the price of his
political support. The member of the government whom he
accused of being implicated in the bribery was J. R. Stratton,
the provincial secretary, and an attempt was made also to
attach suspicion to Ross. Stratton denied Gamey's charges
in toto, and the government immediately referred the matter
to a commission of two judges, Chancellor Boyd and Chief
Justice Falconbridge. After an exhaustive examination of
all the available evidence, the commissioners, finding them
selves unable to regard Gamey's story as trustworthy, held
the charges not proven. To the man in the street, however,
the conclusion was irresistible that there was something rotten
in the state of Denmark, and probably Gamey's charges
did the government as much harm as if they had been
held proven by the commissioners. Certainly they, and the
charges of electoral corruption, were driven home with merci
less iteration in the press. In 1902 the editor of the Globe,
John (afterwards Sir John) S. Willison, had resigned his
position and assumed the editorship of a nominally inde
pendent paper, the News, which had been purchased by a
wealthy conservative. The attacks which the editor of the
News made on the Ross government, coming as they did
from the former editor of the Globe, told heavily everywhere.
And even the Globe, under the editorship of the Rev. J. A.
Macdonald, showed signs of jumping the traces. ' The
barnacles,' it declared one morning, * must be removed from
the ship of State with an iron hand.'

In 1905 Ross decided to appeal to the country with the
hope of being returned with a working majority. That he
was sanguine of the result of his appeal there can be no
doubt. Just before the elections he reorganized his cabinet,
and brought in some new blood. Stratton, feeling that he
was a source of weakness to the party, resigned the pro
vincial secretaryship, and his place was taken by George
P. Graham, the member for Brockville. E. J. Davis, the
commissioner of Crown Lands, had for some time been
without a seat in the house ; he therefore resigned his port
folio, and was succeeded by A. G. Mackay. Gibson resigned
the office of attorney-general, although he still remained in

184 POLITICAL HISTORY

the cabinet as a minister without portfolio ; and he was
succeeded by Latchford, who handed over the department of
Public Works to W. A. Charlton, an ex-speaker of the legis
lature. Lastly, another ex-speaker, F. E. A. Evanturel, was
included in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio. But
even this injection of new blood did not avert the impending
catastrophe. Most people in the province felt that ' thirty-
two years in the saddle ' was enough for any political party,
especially a party overladen with election scandals, and
clinging to power by means of subterfuges and evasions ;
and the result of the elections was a landslide in favour
of the conservative party. Five of the ministers Gibson,
Dryden, Latchford, Charlton, and Evanturel were defeated,
and Whitney was carried to power with a majority in the
house of forty. Never in the history of the province had
there been such a startling upheaval.

The administration which Whitney formed in 1905 did
not seem at the time to be a conspicuously strong one.
Whitney became president of the council ; J. J. Foy, attorney-
general ; Col. A. J. Matheson, provincial treasurer ; W. J.
Hanna, provincial secretary ; Dr R. A. Pyne, minister of
Education ; N. Monteith, minister of Agriculture ; Dr J. O.
Reaume, minister of Public Works ; F. C. Cochrane, minister
of Lands and Mines ; and A. W. Willoughby, J. S. Hendrie,
and Adam Beck, ministers without portfolio. None of these
men had ever before been ministers of the crown, and
most of them were unknown quantities. It was not long,
however, before they gained the confidence of the country,
and by 1908 the Whitney administration proved to be more
firmly entrenched in office than ever the government of
Sir Oliver Mowat had been. On the other hand, the oppo
sition has been a mere simulacrum. For the first session
after 1905 Ross himself led the opposition ; but on his
appointment to the Senate in 1906, and on Graham's trans
lation to Ottawa as a member of the Laurier government, the
leadership of the party reverted to A. G. Mackay. In the
elections of 1908 Mackay led his party to a defeat even
more disastrous than that of 1905.

The undeniable success of the Whitney administration

HARDY, ROSS, AND WHITNEY 185

has been largely due to the personality of Sir James Whitney
himself. The impression he has made as prime minister has
been better even than that which he made as leader of the
opposition. His bluff, straightforward honesty ; his refusal
to palter, or hedge, or trim ; his freedom from cant and
equivocation all these things have commended him to ordi
nary people. Le roi s'avisera is a formula no longer heard
in Queen's Park : the answer of government is always Yea,
yea or Nay, nay. The popularity of Sir James Whitney,
moreover, is partly due to the fact that he is in no sense a
conservative. Having dished the whigs, he has now stolen
their clothes. His policy of building up New Ontario he has
taken over from the Ross government ; and he has shown
himself as careful a guardian of provincial rights as Sir Oliver
Mowat ever was, owing perhaps to the fact that up to 1911
the government in power at Ottawa was a liberal government.
In regard to education Sir James Whitney has been more
liberal than the liberals ; and he has gone further in the
direction of government ownership of public utilities than any
of his predecessors in office would have gone. The success
of the Hydro-Electric Commission, under the chairmanship
of Adam Beck, in supplying the province with power from
Niagara Falls, has been an admirable example of the efficient
application by the government of the principles of public
ownership to provincial affairs. Perhaps no more curious
evidence has been forthcoming of the favourable impression
that the Whitney government has produced than the com
mendation which it received in the Dominion elections of
1911 from Henri Bourassa, the leader of the Quebec National
ists. Bourassa declared that the Nationalists of Quebec were
in the habit of holding up Sir James Whitney's government
as a model of provincial administration. 1

1 Speech at Sudbury, September 18, 1911.

THE PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE
ORGANIZATION

THE PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE
ORGANIZATION

WITHIN the limitations prescribed by the British
North America Act the Province of Ontario is
a sovereign state. What these limitations may
be is a constitutional question which is pertinent to all the
provinces of the Dominion and is not within the scope of
this article. However, before considering the activities of
the executive of the province, a word should be said about
the supreme authority the legislature.

THE LEGISLATURE

I ^HE legislature of Ontario was established, by sections
JL 69 and 70 of the British North America Act, with
a single chamber styled the legislative assembly of
Ontario, having eighty-two members representing eighty-two
constituencies set out in the schedule of the act. The
number of members has been increased from time to time
by 38 Viet. cap. 2 (1874) to eighty-eight members repre
senting eighty-eight constituencies ; by 48 Viet. cap. 2 (1885)
to ninety members, eighty-seven constituencies being repre
sented by one member each, and one, the city of Toronto,
by three members ; by 57 Viet. cap. 2 (1894) to ninety-
four members, ninety-two constituencies, including the city
of Toronto divided into four constituencies, and the city
of Hamilton into two, and one constituency, the city of
Ottawa, represented by two members ; by 2 Edw. vii,

189

igo PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

cap. 4 (1902) to ninety-eight members, four additional con
stituencies in New Ontario being added, with one member
each, to the representation of 1894 ; and by 8 Edw. vn,
cap. 2 (1908) to one hundred and two constituencies repre
sented by one member each and the four constituencies of
the city of Toronto represented by two members each.

The business of the assembly is conducted in the parlia
mentary method according to the practice of the imperial
parliament and of the Dominion parliament. The assembly
is presided over by a speaker elected at the commencement
of the first session of each assembly. The term of each
assembly is for four years from the fifty-fifth day after the
date of the writs for the election and no longer, and is subject
to dissolution before that time by the lieutenant-governor ;
a session must be held once at least in every year, so that
twelve months shall not intervene between the last sitting
in one session and the first sitting in the next.

II
THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR 1

THIS office was created by section 58 of the British
North America Act. For the purposes of the pro
vince and within the prescribed limitations the
administration of the affairs of the province is vested in the
holder of the office and carried on by his constitutional
advisers in his name. The lieutenant-governor is appointed
by the governor-general in council and holds office during
pleasure. It is provided, however, that any lieutenant-

1 LIEUTENANT-GOVERNORS OF ONTARIO, 1867-1913

Major-General H. W. Stisted

W. P. Rowland, C.B. .

John W. Crawford

D. A. Macdonald

John Beverley Robinson

Sir Alexander Campbell, K.C M.G.

George A. Kirkpatrick .

Sir Oliver Mowat, G.C.M.G. .

Sir W. Mortimer Clark

Sir John Morison Gibson, K.C.M.G.

July i, 1867.

July 14, 1868.

Nov. 5, 1873.

May 1 8, 1875.

June 30, 1880.

Feb. 8, 1887.

May 28, 1892.

Nov. 1 8, 1897.

Apr. 20, 1903.

Sept. 22, 1908.

THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR 191

governor appointed after the commencement of the first
session of the parliament of Canada shall not be removable
within five years from his appointment except for cause
assigned, which shall be communicated to him and to parlia
ment. The effect of these provisions is that five years is the
period of office of the lieutenant-governor, and he continues
therein until his successor is appointed.

The commission of the lieutenant-governor is issued under
the great seal of Canada, and the instructions therewith are
as follows :

Whereas it is enacted in and by ' The British North
America Act, 1867,' that for each Province there shall
be an Officer, styled the Lieutenant Governor, appointed
by the Governor General in Council by instrument
under the Great Seal of Canada ; and whereas, by and
with the advice of the King's Privy Council for Canada,
I have, by Commission under the Great Seal of Canada,
constituted and appointed [set out name] to be Lieu
tenant Governor in and over the said Province of
Ontario, one of the Provinces of the Dominion of
Canada, and thereby authorized and empowered and
commanded him in due manner, to do and execute
all things belonging to his said command and trust
according to the several powers, provisions and direc
tions granted or appointed to him by virtue of the said
Act, and of all other Statutes in that behalf, and of the
said Commission, according to such instruments as were
with the said Commission given unto him, or which
might, from time to time, be given to him in respect
to the said Province of Ontario, under my Sign Manual
or by order of the King's Privy Council for Canada,
and according to such laws as are or may be in force
within the said Province of Ontario.

I. Now, therefore, I do by these my Instructions
under my Sign Manual, by and with the advice of the
King's Privy Council for Canada, declare my pleasure
to be that the Lieutenant Governor of the Province of
Ontario, for the time being, shall, with all due solemnity,
cause the said Commission under the Great Seal of
Canada, appointing him Lieutenant Governor, to be
read and published in the presence of the Chief Justice
for the time being or other Judge of the Supreme Court

192 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

(or as the case may be) of the said Province and of the
members of the Executive Council in the said Province.

II. And I do further declare my pleasure to be that
the Lieutenant Governor and every other officer appointed
to administer the Government of the said Province,
shall take the oath of allegiance in the form provided
by the said Act, and likewise that he or they shall take
the usual oaths for the due execution of the office of
Lieutenant Governor, which oaths the said Chief Justice
for the time being of the said Province (or Court, as the
case may be), or in his absence, or in the event of his
being otherwise incapacitated, any Judge of the Supreme
Court (or other Court, as the case may be) of the said
Province, or in the case of emergency any one duly com
missioned by me, shall and is hereby required to tender
or administer unto him or them.

III. And I do authorize and require the Lieutenant
Governor, from time to time, to administer to all and
every person or persons, to whom he is by the said Act
directed to administer the same, the said oath of allegi
ance, and generally to administer such other oath or
oaths as he lawfully may, and as may from time to time
be prescribed by any Laws or Statutes in that behalf
provided.

IV. The Lieutenant Governor is to take care that all
Laws assented to by him in my name, or reserved for
signification of my pleasure thereon, shall, when trans
mitted by him, be fairly abstracted in the margin, and
be accompanied in such cases as may seem to him
necessary, with such explanatory observations as may
be required to exhibit the reasons and occasions for
proposing such Laws.

V. Whenever the Lieutenant Governor assents to a
Bill, he shall, within ten days thereafter, send an authentic
copy of the Act to the Secretary of State of Canada.

VI. The Lieutenant Governor, on receipt of a copy of
an Order in Council disallowing an Act with my certificate
of the date on which the Act was received by me, shall
forthwith make proclamation in the said Province of such
certificate, and of the disallowance of the said Act.

VII. The Lieutenant Governor shall not quit the
Province without having first obtained leave from me
for so doing, under my Sign Manual, or through the
Secretary of State of Canada.

THE CABINET 193

In the event of the temporary absence of the lieutenant-
governor from the province, or his disability being sufficient
to cause any interference with public business, an adminis
trator may be appointed. The administrator is usually the
chief justice of Ontario.

Under the king's regulations (imperial) lieutenant-gover
nors are not entitled to an artillery salute on any occasion
unless they hold commissions direct from the crown. An
exception has, however, been made with respect to the
lieutenant-governors of the provinces of Canada, and they
are entitled to a salute of fifteen guns at the opening and
closing of the assembly, as on these occasions they may be
looked upon as the representatives of the sovereign. Simi
larly on these occasions, and these only, they are entitled to
have played the first six bars of the National Anthem.

Ill
THE CABINET

BY section 63 of the British North America Act it was
provided that the executive council of Ontario shall
be composed of such persons as the lieutenant-governor
from time to time thinks fit, and in the first instance of the
following officers : the attorney-general, the secretary and
registrar of the province, the treasurer of the province, the
commissioner of Crown Lands, and the commissioner of
Agriculture and Public Works.

In 1874, by 37 Viet. cap. 2, the first change was made,
and it was provided that it shall not be necessary that the
office of commissioner of Agriculture and the office of com
missioner of Public Works shall be held by the same
person, and that the office of commissioner of Agriculture
may be held by a member of the executive council holding
no other office or may be held in connection with any other
office held by a member. In the year 1876, by 39 Viet,
cap. 16, the office of minister of Education as a member of
the executive council was established ; while in the year

VOL. xvn

194 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

1905, by 5 Edw. VII, cap. 5, the titles of the commissioner
of Crown Lands and the commissioner of Public Works were
changed to that of the minister of Lands and Mines and
the minister of Public Works respectively, and the office of
president of the council was created. 1

The executive council at the present time thus consists
of the following officers :

President of the Council,

Attorney-General ,

Secretary and Registrar of the Province,

Treasurer of the Province,

Minister of Lands, Forests, and Mines,

Minister of Education,

Minister of Public Works, and

Minister of Agriculture.

From time to time members of the assembly are appointed
to the executive council without having departments of the
government assigned to their charge. These hold office with
out portfolio.

At the session of 1874, by 37 Viet. cap. 2, it was enacted
that ' any of the powers and duties which have been here
tofore or shall be hereafter assigned by law to any of the
Officers now constituting, or who may hereafter constitute,
the Executive Council may, from time to time, by Order in
Council, be assigned and transferred, either for a limited
period or otherwise, to any other of the said Officers by name
or otherwise.' This enactment now stands as section 3 of
the Revised Statutes, chapter 14. Under its provisions
many branches of the government departments have been
transferred and retransferred to other departments to meet
the wishes of individual members of the council. For in
stance, the licence branch of the department of the pro
vincial secretary was formerly administered by the treasurer.
The division courts which are now within the department
of the attorney-general were at one time in the department
of Public Works. The inspector of registry offices, formerly
an officer of the department of the provincial secretary, is

1 In 1871 Edward Blake assumed the position of president of the council (see
p. 130), but he acted in that capacity as a member without portfolio, as there
was no statutory authority creating the office.

DEPARTMENT OF ATTORNEY-GENERAL 195

now an officer of the department of the attorney-general.
There are several other such cases, and in this article these
offices will be dealt with in the consideration of the depart
ment with which they are now associated, without reference
to their history.

Members of the executive council while holding office,
and not thereafter, are entitled to be styled ' Honourable.'

IV
THE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL

" I ^HIS office was created in 1905. The growing govern
mental business of the province demanded that the
prime minister should not be burdened with the
direct care of a department. Sir James Pliny Whitney, at
that time and still (1913) the premier of the province, is the
first holder of the office. Before that time, except while
Sir George Ross was first minister and held the office of
the treasurer of the province, the premier presided over
the department of the attorney-general. The Province of
Ontario thus followed closely the example of the Dominion
government in recognizing the necessity of freeing the first
minister from departmental duties. During the regime of
Sir John Macdonald the office of president of the Privy
Council was considered the junior position of the cabinet.
Sir John Abbott was the first Dominion premier to hold that
office, taking over the duties in 1891. Sir Mackenzie Bowell
during his premiership also held it. Sir Wilfrid Laurier and
R. L. Borden on forming their governments were appointed
to this office.

V
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL

The King cannot appear in his own Courts in person
to plead his cause where his interests are concerned, so
from very early times he has used the service of an
attorney or agent to appear on his behalf. The list of
Attorneys-General begins early in the reign of Edward I.

ig6 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

These law officers [the Solicitor-General being also referred
to] are not only the legal advisers and representatives
of the Sovereign ; they are at the service of the State
where offences against good order of the community
are dealt with, not by a private prosecution, but by the
Government of the day. The Government may call
for their advice and so may each Department of the
Government ; they are expected to defend in the House
of Commons the legality of Ministerial action, if called
in question. 1

r I ^HE attorney-general 2 is the protector of the king's
peace in the province. For this purpose he stands
at the head of an organization which covers the
province. The most important of the officials of his de
partment are the county crown attorneys, who represent
the attorney-general in each county and district and act as
public prosecutors. Among their varied duties are the in
stitution and conduct, on the part of the crown, of pro
secutions for crimes and misdemeanours at the General
Sessions of the Peace and the county Judges' Criminal Court
for their respective counties in the same manner as the
law-officers of the crown institute and conduct prosecutions
at the assizes. It is also their duty to watch on behalf
of the crown all private prosecutions in these courts and,
if necessary, to assume conduct thereof ; to prepare for the
crown prosecutor at the assizes all cases that may come
before that court for trial ; and to advise justices of the peace.
They are notified of all cases pending before coroners and, if
directed to do so by the attorney-general, they watch the pro
gress of such cases. In all counties except York the county
crown attorney is also clerk of the peace for the county.

1 Anson, The Law and Custom of the Constitution.

2 ATTORNEYS-GENERAL OF ONTARIO, 1867-1913
John Sandfield Macdonald . -July

Adam Crooks

Sir Oliver Mowat, G.C.M.G.

A. S. Hardy

J. M. Gibson

F. R. Latchford .

Sir James Pliny Whitney

J. J- Foy

1 6, 1867.

Dec. 20, 1871.

Oct. 31, 1872.

14, 1896.

21, 1899.

22, 1904.

8, 1905.

30, I905-

July
Oct.
Nov.
Feb.

May

DEPARTMENT OF ATTORNEY-GENERAL 197

The justices of the peace are appointed on the recom
mendation of the attorney-general. Their jurisdiction is
limited, except in special cases, to the county in which they
reside, and they may dispose of certain criminal cases, defined
by the Criminal Code. Justices of the peace must be of
age and be possessed of real property worth at least $1200
beyond all their debts.

Next above the justice of the peace is the police magis
trate, who, under the Criminal Code, has jurisdiction equal
to that given to two justices of the peace. Every city and
town of the province having a population of more than five
thousand must have a police magistrate, and his salary,
which is fixed by statute, is payable by the municipality.
Salaried police magistrates may also be appointed for counties
or parts of counties after a resolution therefor has been
passed by the county council, and police magistrates may be
appointed without salary, that is, they may be paid by fees,
for any county and district. The appointment of a police
magistrate is made by the lieutenant-governor in council on
the recommendation of the attorney-general.

For the purpose of the enforcement of the criminal law
there is also established a provincial police force under the
direct supervision of the attorney-general. This force con
sists of the superintendent, inspectors of criminal investiga
tions, divisional inspectors and constables. The superinten
dent and inspectors are attached to the attorney-general's
department and have charge of extradition cases and major
criminal cases. Forces under divisional inspectors are main
tained at Niagara Falls and Windsor, and constables are
stationed throughout the province, more particularly in the
newly settled parts, as occasion requires.

It is on the recommendation of the attorney-general that
the officials and clerks of the Supreme Court of Ontario, and
of the surrogate county and district courts, and sheriffs are
appointed, and it is to him that they are responsible for their
conduct in the office.

For the purpose of supervising the work of these officials
there is an inspector of legal offices attached to this depart
ment. It is his duty from time to time to inspect in person

ig8 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

the various offices of the courts, to report upon the effici
ency and amount of work done therein, and to hear and
investigate complaints from the public.

The administration of the division courts, in so far as it
relates to the appointment and supervision of the duties of
the clerks and bailiffs, is attached to this department, and
there is an inspector of division courts for this purpose.

The counties and districts of the province are divided into
divisions, with a court, clerk, and bailiff for each. The
courts are presided over by the county court judges of the
county of the division, and the clerks and bailiffs are appointed
on the recommendation of the attorney-general.

In the year 1795, by 35 Geo. in, cap. 5, a system of
registration of titles of land was established. For this
purpose registrars of deeds were appointed and registry
offices were established in the counties and cities. There
are sixty-four such offices in the province, and in many cases
counties have more than one registry division. The registry
office and the duties of the registrar are under the supervision
of the inspector of registry offices, an official of this depart
ment.

In the year 1885, by 48 Viet. cap. 22, the Torrens system
of land titles was introduced. At first made applicable only
to the city of Toronto and the county of York, the act was
made applicable two years later to what is known as New
Ontario and to other parts of the province, after resolutions
of municipal councils in that behalf. The inspection of the
offices of local masters of titles is within the duties of the
master of titles at Toronto, and for the purposes of this act
he is an official of this department.

A most important branch of this department is that
presided over, subject to the attorney-general, by the super
intendent of insurance. The matter here dealt with em
braces insurance of all descriptions fire, life, accident,
indemnity, guarantee, live stock, and others. All insurance
companies provincially incorporated are created by letters
patent or by registration under the supervision of the super
intendent. All extra-provincial companies must be licensed
or registered in the office of the superintendent. The pro-

DEPARTMENT OF ATTORNEY-GENERAL 199

visions of the act, 2 Geo. V. cap. 33 (1912), are intricate and
lengthy. They provide for a deposit with the minister of
specified securities by all companies, with certain exceptions :
namely, mutual insurance, companies for the insurance of
farm buildings, mutual live stock and weather insurance
companies, Dominion insurance companies, marine insurance
companies, friendly societies and trade unions. This deposit
is dependent on the contingent liabilities of the company.
The act contains provisions for auditing the books of the
company and regulating the conduct of its affairs. It is the
duty of the superintendent to visit the head office or chief
agency in the province of every company licensed under the
act at least once in each year and to examine the condition
and affairs of the company ; and to make each year to the
minister a report on the condition of the business of every
company inspected ; and in case it appears to him that the
assets of a company are insufficient to justify its continuance
in business, or that it is unsafe for the public to effect insur
ance with the company, he must make a special report to the
minister. The act also contains provisions for the winding
up of insolvent insurance companies. The superintendent of
insurance is also the registrar of loan and trust companies.
All such companies must be registered and must make annual
returns.

Another important official of this department is the
municipal auditor. It is his duty to prepare books and forms
for the keeping of accounts of the municipalities of the pro
vince and to formulate rules for the keeping of accounts.
These rules, on being confirmed by order-in-council, have the
force of law, one of the main purposes being to establish a
uniform system of accounting throughout the province.
The auditor may at any time, either on his own initiative
or at the request of two members of a municipal council,
make an inspection or audit of the books and accounts of the
municipality.

200 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

VI

Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, now five
in number, are the chief means of communication
between the subject and the Queen. Peers of Parlia
ment are Councillors of the Crown and have a right of
access to the person of the Sovereign. Privy Coun
cillors are the sworn advisers of the Queen, and as such
may individually or collectively offer counsel for which
they must hold themselves responsible to Parliament.
But outside of these is the mass of the Queen's subjects
who can only address the Crown in Council or the Crown
in person, and in the latter case the only approach to
the Crown is through a Secretary of State. A depart
ment of government may be reached by direct com
munication : an aggrieved soldier or sailor may complain
to the War Office or to the Admiralty, a Civil Servant
whose emoluments do not correspond with his estimate
of his deserts may address the Lords of the Treasury,
but no communication can be made to the Sovereign
save through the intervention of a Secretary of State :
nor with a few exceptions can any authentic communica
tion be made by the Sovereign that is not countersigned
by a Secretary of State.

The Secretaries of State are not merely the channels
of communication between subject and Sovereign. Each

1 PROVINCIAL SECRETARIES AND
M. C. Cameron
S. Richards .
Alexander Mackenzie
Peter Gow .
T. B. Pardee
C. F. Eraser
Archibald M c Kellar
S. C. Wood .
A. S. Hardy
J. M. Gibson
W. D. Balfour .
E. J. Davis
J. R. Stratton
G. P. Graham
W. J. Hanna

REGISTRARS OF ONTARIO, 1867-1913

. July 20, 1867.
. July 25, 1871.
. Dec. 20, 1871.
. Dec. 21, 1871.
. Oct. 25, 1872.
. Nov. 25, 1873.
. Apr. 4, 1874.
J ul Y 23, 1875.
. Mar. 19, 1877.
. Jan. 18, 1889.
. July 21, 1896.
. Aug. 28, 1896.
. Oct. 21, 1899.
. Nov. 22, 1904.
. Feb. 8, 1905.

THE SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR 201

is the head of an important department of the govern
ment, and in that department is invested with statu
tory powers, or administers certain prerogatives of the
Crown for the exercise of which he is responsible to
Parliament. 1

TO what extent and for what purposes the lieutenant-
governor represents the sovereign is a constitutional
question that lies outside the scope of this article.
It is sufficient to say that the forms and procedure of par
liamentary and cabinet government as they obtain in the
United Kingdom are followed in the Province of Ontario. It
is, therefore, through the provincial secretary that addresses,
petitions, memorials and other documents are presented to
the lieutenant-governor. It is through the same channel that
the decisions and appointments to office are communicated
to the public. These secretarial duties, however important
their character may be, form but a small part of the duties of
the department.

The administration of the Companies Act is conducted
by this department. The system of incorporating companies
by letters patent under the great seal of the province, which
was adopted prior to Confederation, still prevails. The
limitations of the scope and character of companies which
may be incorporated under provincial laws are (1913) pending
before the Supreme Court of Canada. The British North
America Act provides that the provinces may incorporate
companies 'with Provincial objects,' and the interpretation
of these words is the subject under consideration in the courts.

A cognate subject is the administration of the act respect
ing the licensing of extra-provincial companies. Under the
provisions of that act no foreign company, whether incor
porated under the laws of the Dominion or of another pro
vince, or another country, may carry on business within
the province without obtaining a licence under the act. It
should be added that the competency of the act in so far as
it applies to Dominion companies is also pending before the
Supreme Court of Canada.

The growing prosperity and business activity of the pro-

1 Anson, The Law and Custom of the Constitution.

202 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

vince may readily be gathered from the increase of the work
of this branch of the department. In the year 1892, 158
charters incorporating companies were issued. This num
ber increased in 1901 to 450, and in the fiscal year ending
October 31, 1911, the number was 1211, yielding a revenue of
$235,662.10. The fees payable on Company returns in the
year 1911 amounted to $25,184. The capitalization of com
panies incorporated was $322,231,250, and 53 associations
without share capital were incorporated.

The administration of the motor vehicle act is among the
duties of this department. Every motor vehicle which is
used on the highways of the province must be licensed under
this act. Paid chauffeurs must also be licensed. On pay
ment of a fee of $2 an annual licence is issued, and a further
charge of $2 is made for the tags which must be displayed
on the motor vehicle.

THE REGISTRY BRANCH

This branch of the department is the registry office of
the government. All crown patents, commissions, and other
documents issued under the great seal of the lieutenant-
governor, and all conveyances of land formerly granted by
the crown, are recorded.

PRISONS, ASYLUMS, AND ELEEMOSYNARY INSTITUTIONS

An important duty of the department is the inspection,
control, and supervision of the reformatory and charitable
institutions of the province.

The Central Prison. In the year 1870 the provincial
government established in the western part of Toronto the
Central Prison for the relief of the county gaols of the pro
vince and for the establishment of prison industries for short
term convicts. Males convicted for less than two years only
are received. For many years woodworking, rope and twine
manufacturing, and other light industries were carried on.
But in recent years the growth of Toronto and the develop
ment of methods of dealing with and reforming criminals have
rendered the removal of this institution necessary. In the

THE SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR 203

year 1909 a large tract of farming land was acquired in the
county of Wellington near the city of Guelph. Extensive
buildings are now (1913) in course of erection, and very soon
all the prisoners will be maintained there. This prison since
its establishment has adopted the modern methods of prison
reform. The inmates are engaged in farm labour and are
given much greater freedom than could be given at or near
a large city. Its success during its short history is remark
able, not only in results of reformation, but in the evident
improvement in the character of the convicts, resulting from
open air life and a limited responsibility. In connection with
the prison there is a parole board presided over by a judge
of the High Court and composed of men interested in social
work. They visit the prison from time to time, investigate
the history and character of the inmates, and, if advisable,
they recommend to the minister of Justice the pardon or
parole of prisoners.

The Mercer Reformatory. William Mercer died at Toronto
in the year 1871. He left no known heir or next of kin, and
the attorney-general took possession of his estate on behalf
of the province in its right of estreat and bona vacantia.
Protracted litigation ensued which raised constitutional ques
tions of the greatest importance. The Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council finally decided between the Dominion and
the province that the right of estreat was in the province.
With the proceeds of the estate and additional funds the pro
vince established this reformatory for women and young girls.
Females convicted for less than two years only are received.

Hospitals for the Insane. The province maintains eight
hospitals for the care of the insane :

Capacity

Brockville 660

Cobourg, for females only . . . 155

Hamilton ....... 1259

Kingston ... .... 593

London . 1066

Mimico 620

Penetanguishene ..... 369

Toronto ....... 852

Total capacity . . 5574

204 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

A new modern hospital is in course of erection near Whitby,
in the county of Ontario. On its completion the institution at
Toronto will be closed.

The average daily population of these hospitals has in
creased from an average for the years 1882-86 of 1312 males
and 1330 females total 2642 to 2708 males and 2884 females
total 5592 for the year ending October 31, 1911. The
total expenditure for the year 1911 was $1,043,145.73. The
total receipts from paying patients amounted to $207,593.24,
and from farm and miscellaneous sources, $10,894.51. And
there was contributed from the municipalities, being deducted
from railway taxation distributable to the municipalities under
6 Edw. vii, cap. 9, $113,613.80, making a grand total of
$332,101.55. The balance, the sum of $711,044.18, was paid
out of the consolidated revenue fund of the province.

The report for the year ending October 31, 1911, shows
that during the year there were 1144 admissions ; 542 were
discharged, 299 recovered, 218 improved, and in 25 case
no improvement was noted. The report has the following
statement :

That the Hospitals for the Insane in the Province are
economically administered is evidenced by the fact that
one-eighth of the total annual expenditure of the Pro
vince is for the care of the insane ; as compared with
one-sixth in New York State, while the annual Tax in
this Province is only forty-one cents on every man,
woman and child, as compared with seventy cents in
New York State.

The province also maintains a hospital for the feeble
minded at Orillia, with inmates as follows :

Male ...... 417

Female ...... 392

Total . .

and a hospital for epileptics at Woodstock, with inmates as

follows :

Male ...... 102

Female ...... 96

Total . .

THE SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR 205

PROVINCIAL BOARD OF HEALTH

The first public health act of the province was passed in
the year 1873, and since that time the activity in connection
with the public health has been directed by the provincial
board of health. The enactment controlling the branch and
limiting the duties of the provincial and local boards of health
were consolidated in the statute of 1912 (2 Geo. v, cap. 58).

The provincial board of six members is appointed by the
lieutenant-governor in council for a term of three years, and
the members, of whom four at least must be medical prac
titioners, are eligible for reappointment. The chief officer of
health for Ontario similarly appointed is ex officio a member
of the board and acts as its secretary. He is the executive
officer of the board under the minister. The duties of the
board are, briefly stated : to make investigations as to disease
and mortality ; to advise on sanitary matters such as drainage,
water supply, disposal of garbage, and heating, ventilating,
and plumbing ; to exercise an oversight over vaccine and
serum used in the province ; to determine whether the con
dition of any premises or public place is a nuisance or in
jurious to health ; to inspect all gaols, prisons, houses of
refuge, asylums, hospitals and other similar institutions, public
or private, and to see that such institutions are kept in a
proper sanitary condition ; to distribute literature dealing
with questions of health ; and to enter any premises in the
exercise of any power or any duty under the act, and to give
such directions with regard to structural alterations as may
be advisable in the interests of public health.

The board on investigating a public nuisance injurious
to health may order its abatement, and if its orders are not
carried out by the persons responsible, the board may take
measures therefor, and the municipality where it existed is
responsible for the expenses of abatement.

The board may make regulations, subject to the approval
of the lieutenant-governor in council : for the prevention
and against the spread of disease ; for the cleaning of streets,
yards, and premises ; for the removal of nuisances and un-

206 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

sanitary conditions ; for the cleaning, purifying, ventilating,
and disinfecting of premises ; for the regulation of passenger
traffic within the jurisdiction of the province ; for the inter
ment or disinterment of the dead and the transportation of
corpses ; for medical aid during epidemics ; regarding the
overcrowding of dwellings ; regarding travel from infected
localities ; for the sanitary inspection for municipalities ; for
the surveillance of persons in infected localities ; for taking
possession of infected premises ; for the health of summer
resorts ; and for other matters concerning general questions
of health.

For the purpose of more effectually supervising inspection
and health regulations, the province may be divided into ten
health districts, with a district officer of health for each.
It is provided, however, that no district shall include a city
having a population of over 50,000.

There is a local board of health in each municipality.
Where the population is over 4000, the board consists of the
mayor, the medical officer of health appointed by the muni
cipal council, and three resident ratepayers, also appointed
by the council yearly ; and where the population is less than
4000, the head of the municipality, the medical officer of
health, and one ratepayer appointed yearly. In a word, it
is the duty of the local boards : to enforce the regulations
laid down by the provincial board ; to inspect premises ; to
abate nuisances to public health ; to take measures for the
prevention and spread of communicable diseases ; to establish
isolation hospitals ; and generally to preserve the public
health. The act makes provision for payment by the muni
cipalities for these services. General works for the supply of
water and the removal of sewage are subject to the approval
of the provincial board.

VITAL STATISTICS

The collection of vital statistics by the province was
commenced in 1871 and placed in charge of the registrar-
general. For this purpose the whole province is divided into
registration divisions. Each municipality is such a division,

THE SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR 207

and an unorganized part of the province may be attached
to an adjoining municipality, or a separate registration
division may be established with a division registrar by the
lieutenant-governor in council. The clerk of the munici
pality is the division registrar. Births, marriages, and deaths
in each division must, under penalty, be communicated to the
registrar for transmission to the registrar-general.

THE LIQUOR LICENCE BRANCH

Prior to the year 1874 tne control of tavern, shop,
and other licences to sell liquor was in the hands of the
municipalities and exercised by the boards of police com
missioners. In that year the existing system of control by
boards of commissioners appointed by the government was
adopted.

This legislation and that of the Dominion in the Canada
Temperance Act passed in 1878 and the Dominion Licence
Act passed in 1883 gave rise to serious constitutional questions
which were disposed of by the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council in Russell v. The Queen (7 A.C. 829), Hodge v.
The Queen (9 A.C. 117), the Brewers and Maltsters case, 1897
(A.C. 231), and the result may be stated as follows : the
licensing of shops and taverns is within the exclusive juris
diction of the province ; the Canada Temperance Act, which
provides for local option in counties or districts of the pro
vince, is within the jurisdiction of the Dominion ; and the
licensing of brewers and distillers, although duly licensed
by the Dominion, is also within the competence of provincial
legislation.

Boards of licence commissioners are established within
each riding of the province. The members are appointed
by the government on the nomination of the local member,
or, in cases where the sitting member is not a follower of the
government, by the defeated candidate at the last election
or other person having the patronage. The members of the
board act without remuneration, their expenses only being
paid.

The administration of the act and the local inspection are

2 o8 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

carried on through inspectors, also appointed by the govern
ment, who perform their duties subject to the direction of
the boards. The boards may also pass regulations applic
able locally. There are, however, regulations provided by
law that prevail throughout the province. Thus liquor may
not be sold from n P.M. till 6 A.M., nor from 7 P.M. on
Saturday till 6 A.M. on Monday. Liquor may not be sold
to minors. Liquor may not be sold to habitual drunkards
when notice to that effect is given to the publican by the
inspector.

The licence fees range from $1600 for a tavern licence
and $1000 for a shop licence in cities of 200,000 or over to
$450, in each case, in cities of not less than 5000 ; in places
between 5000 and 2000, $350 for each ; and in towns of less
than 2000, $270 and $250 respectively. In townships the
fees are $200 and $120 respectively. In the year 1911 a
further tax was imposed of five per cent of the gross
receipts from sales of cigars, cigarettes, tobacco or drinks
or of any service or privilege when made over, at, in, or
from the bar or bar-room wherein the gross receipts exceed
$60 per day at Toronto and $50 per day in all other cases.

New licences may not be granted except on petition of
a majority of the ratepayers of the polling subdivision
wherein the licence is to be exercised. Licences may not
be moved to new places except on a petition. No licensed
place may be established within 300 feet of a church or
school. It is the duty of the inspector to report not only
on the licensed place, but on the character of the licensee,
and serious penalties are imposed for breach of the licence
laws.

In the year 1907 the licensing of clubs was introduced,
and only such clubs as are incorporated by provincial charter
and not prohibited from keeping and selling liquor on their
premises are licensed. In the case of clubs a nominal fee
of $50 is charged.

The number of liquor licences in the province has steadily
decreased from 6185 in the year 1874 to 1938 in the year
1910, with the exception of an increase during the years
1879-84.

THE SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR 209

The number of licences which may be granted in a
municipality is subject to by-law of the municipal council.
At the time of writing (1913), in the city of Toronto, with a
population of about 425,000, there are no tavern, 50 shop,
and 21 club licences ; in Ottawa, with a population of about
90,000; there are 55 tavern, 20 shop, and 4 club licences.

After deducting the expenses of each board in adminis
tering the act the net amount is divided equally between the
municipality and the province, except in the unorganized
parts of the province. For the year 1911 the sum of
$358,467.34 was paid to the municipalities and $445,761.94
to the province, the latter amount including fines exacted
for infringement of the act.

The average yearly commitments for drunkenness for
five-year periods from 1876 to 1910 are as follows :

1876-1880 . . 3812 1896-1900 . . 1920

1881-1885 4 l6 1901-1905 . . 3186

1886-1890 . . 3311 1906-1910 . 4974

1891-1895 . . 2703

Local Option. A system of local option was first intro
duced in 1878 by the Canada Temperance Act, a federal
enactment. It was adopted in many counties of the pro
vince, and found to be a failure mainly, it is stated, because
its provisions were not enforced and it has been repealed
in all cases.

In the year 1890 local option provisions were intro
duced in the Ontario Liquor Licence Act, and its pro
visions have been adopted very largely in the rural parts
of the province. A municipal council may pass a by-law
under the act, and on its approval by a three-fifths majority
of the electors at the next election for municipal officers,
no licences to sell liquor may be issued in the munici
pality. The by-law may not be repealed for three years,
and then only on a three-fifths majority of the municipal
electors approving.

VOL. XVII

210 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

VII
THE TREASURER OF THE PROVINCE 1

THE treasurer is the custodian of the funds of the pro
vince, and for the purpose of holding securities he
is a corporation sole. The department over which
he presides collects directly such part of the revenues of the
province as may be payable directly to the treasurer, and
receives from the other departments their revenues. All
such revenues, except receipts from the sale of law-stamps,
make up the consolidated revenue of the province, and all
payments on behalf of the province, with few exceptions,
are paid by cheque issued by the treasurer.

The balance-sheet of the province for the year ending
October 31, 1911, shows the following items :

Revenue

Balance carried forward . . $3,i77>5 8 9-66

Dominion Subsidies .... 2,261,758.28

Interest paid by the Dominion . . . 74 6 7 I - 2 6

Interest on Investments . . 57>6i3- I 3

Lands, Forests, and Mines . . 2,710,242.68

Licences 656,363.66

Law Stamps . . IO4.J55-95

Algoma Taxes . ... 6,805.50

Education 42,78472

Provincial Secretary. . 3 2 3.73o- 2 5

Game and Fish . . . 130,267.39

Agriculture .... - 147,169.64

i TREASURERS. OF ONTARIO, 1867-1913

E. B. Wood J ul y 20 > I86 7"

Alexander Mackenzie . . Dec - 21, 1871.

Adam Crooks Oct ' 2 5. 1872.

S. C. Wood . .... - Mar. 19, 1877-

James Young .... J une 2 > 'ff*

1 M. Ross. . ... -Nov. 2,1883.

Richard Harcourt Sept. l6 > l8 9"

G. W. Ross . Oct " 2I > I8 99-

A. J. Matheson Feb - 8 ' I 95-

I. B. Lucas May 13, 1913-

THE TREASURER OF THE PROVINCE 211

Supplementary Revenue Act . . . $854,659.91

Succession Duty 963,19549

Deposits . . . 87,437.87

Public Institutions Deposits . . 274,300.96

Government Railway . . . 515,000.00

Drainage Debentures ,, ... 26,886.74

Municipal Securities ,, ... 30,179.44

Proceeds of Loans ..... 2,481,795.08

Assurance Fund Land Titles . . . 30,000.00
Proceeds of sale of Central Prison and Asylum

Lands " 89,840.00

Casual Revenue . ... 160,671.21

$15,207,124.82

Expenditure

Civil Government $602,528.24

Legislation 275,959.77

Administration of Justice .... 653,383.69

Education . . 1,885,739.57

Public Institutions ..... 1,197,726.38

Colonization and Immigration . . . 106,906.61

Agriculture ... . 686,197.78

Hospitals and Charities .... 357,849.12

Repairs and Maintenance . . . 199,511.59

Colonization Roads ..... 451,111.26

Charges on Crown Lands . . . . 617,111.98

Refunds 67,335.69

Miscellaneous Services .... 2 5 2 ,953-53

Hydro- Electric, for Province . . . 91,302.43

Public Buildings and Works . . . 474,640.71

Special Warrants ..... 53,H3-3O

Stationery Account .... 6,069.81

Interest Charges on Government Stock . 763,415.55

Statutory Expenditure .... 877,077.02

Drainage Debentures .... 63,673.25

Advance to Government Railway . . 1,412,324.00

New Public Buildings and Works . . 978,890.72

Good Roads ...... 179,688.26

Algonquin Park Expenditure . . 290,000.00

Hydro-Electric, Advance . . . 1,358,697.58

Cash Balance ..... 1,503,916.99

$15,207,124.82

212 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

The bonded debt of the province amounts to $20,205,004,
of which $17,535,662.69 is the amount of the capital expendi
ture of the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway
Company, a government concern. The balance is made
up of advances to the Hydro-Electric Commission and for
Algonquin Park expenditure.

To the above amount must be added the liability on
municipal sinking funds deposited with the government,
$64,618.97 ; railway aid certificates and annuities outstand
ing, present value $3,899,206.95 (the gross amount of which
payments extends to 1950 and amounts to $5,881,972.38) ;
common school funds, $5,341.66 ; the present value of
annual payments of $30,000 per annum to the University
of Toronto, $481,751.10 (gross $720,000) ; and the land title
assurance fund, $110,000, making a total direct liability of
$24,765,922.68.

The indirect liabilities are as follows :

Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park bonds . . $900,000
Canadian Northern guarantee of bonds . . 7,860,000
University of Toronto guarantee . . . 630,000

$9,390,000

Of the above items of receipt and expenditure the greater
part are dealt with in considering other departments of
the government. The items which require further comment
are Dominion subsidies revenue under the Supplementary
Revenue Act, 8 Edw. vu, cap. 14, and under the Succession
Duty Act, 9 Edw. vn, cap. 12.

Dominion Subsidies. At the time of Confederation the
liabilities of the original provinces were assumed by the
Dominion. Certain assets enumerated in the British North
America Act were also taken over by the Dominion, and
certain assets also enumerated were taken over by the
Provinces of Quebec and Ontario conjointly. Subsidies by
the Dominion were also authorized, the amount payable to
Ontario being $80,000, plus eighty cents per head of the
population as ascertained at the decennial taking of the

THE TREASURER OF THE PROVINCE 213

census. The subsidy was readjusted as it now stands by
the British North America Act, 1907, under which Ontario
is entitled to be paid $240,000, plus eighty cents per head
of the population according to the preceding census up to
2,500,000, and sixty cents per head of the population in
excess of that number. There is a further subsidy under
the provisions of 47 Viet. cap. 4 (Dominion), being the
interest upon the capitalized sum which would have been
paid had the amount as adjusted under the act of 1873,
36 Viet. cap. 30, been paid since the time of Confederation.

Special taxes for the purpose of increasing the provincial
revenue were first introduced in the year 1899 and were
imposed upon banks, loan, trust, and insurance companies,
railway, express, telephone, telegraph, and other public
companies. This act was amended from time to time
and consolidated in the existing act of 1908 (8 Edw. vn,
cap. 14).

Banks are taxed one-tenth per cent on capital up to
$2,000,000 and one-fortieth per cent above $2,000,000 up to
$6,000,000, with $100 additional for the head office if in the
province and $25 for each branch office. In cases where the
head office is out of the province and there are not more than
five branches within the province an abatement may be made.
During the year ending October 31, 1912, this tax produced
$76,525.38. The amount produced in each case for that
period is herewith shown in the figures following the rate
on each item. Life insurance companies pay one per cent
($121,277.09) and other insurance companies two-thirds of
one per cent on the gross premium paid in the province
($68,840.43). Loan companies pay 65 cents on every $1000
of paid-up capital with a minimum of $65,000 ($26,898.30) ;
trust companies, $250 on capital of $100,000 and $65 for each
additional $100,000, and if the gross profits exceed $25,000,
a further sum of $500 ($10,235) ; railways, $60 per mile of
single track, and where there are two or more tracks,
per mile for each additional track in municipalities, and
for single track and $10 for two or more tracks outside
municipalities sidings, switches, and spurs are not included
($448,515.66) ; street railways, from $20 to $60 per mile if

214 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

the mileage is less than twenty or more than fifty miles of
single track, double track being taken as two single tracks
($12,833.10) ; telegraph companies, one-tenth per cent of
the total invested in the province ($1,292.24) ; telephone
companies, one-eighth per cent calculated on the paid-up
capital ($11,584.93) ; gas and electric companies, one-tenth
per cent on the paid-up capital ($13,620.62) ; express com
panies, $500 for each one hundred miles or fraction thereof
of railway operated upon ($48,000) ; sleeping and parlour
car companies, one-third per cent upon amount invested in
Ontario ($2,268.10).

After deducting $30,000 the revenue from railway taxa
tion is divided equally between the province and the muni
cipalities of the organized part of the province, the divisible
share of each municipality being calculated on the basis of
the last census. From these payments, however, the cost
of maintenance of indigents in the public institutions of the
province is deducted.

Under recent legislation there is also a stamp tax imposed
upon the transfer in the province of securities issued by any
corporation ; during the year ending October 31, 1912, this
tax produced $38,850.70. The tax on race-track meetings
during the same period produced $17,290.25.

Succession Duty. Aid to the revenue of the province by
way of succession duty or inheritance tax was first intro
duced in 1892. The law on the subject was amended largely
in 1907 and was consolidated in 1909 by 9 Edw. vn, cap. 12.
The provisions of the act are complicated and it is possible
to give here only the outlines. In computing the duty the
fair market value of the estate at the time of the death is
the basis of calculation. From the aggregate value all debts
and encumbrances, funeral expenses and surrogate fees are
deducted ; but debts must have been incurred bona fide for
full consideration, and no allowance is made where there
is a right over against some other person unless this right
cannot be realized upon.

The following are the exceptions : on estates, the aggregate
value of which does not exceed $10,000 ; charitable, reli
gious, and educational bequests ; estates in which the pro-

THE TREASURER OF THE PROVINCE 215

perty passes to a grandfather, grandmother, father, mother,
husband, wife, child, daughter-in-law or son-in-law, which
do not exceed $50,000 ; life insurance not exceeding $5000,
which passes to relations just mentioned ; securities of a
company having its head office in Ontario which are transfer
able on a foreign register ; and in all cases when the property
passing to one person does not exceed $300.

Where the estate exceeds $50,000 and the property passes
to a relative above mentioned the duty ranges from one per
cent to five per cent on an estate of an aggregate value of
over $200,000. Where the estate exceeds $100,000 and the
value of the property passing to an individual exceeds $100,000
there is an additional duty which ranges from one per cent on
$100,000 to five per cent where the amount so passing exceeds
$1,200,000. Where the property passes to strangers or to
a relative other than descendants the duty is still greater.
Where the estate is valued at more than $10,000 the duty
in such cases is ten per cent in succession by strangers.
There is also an additional duty where the amount pass
ing to one person exceeds $50,000, and it ranges from one
per cent on that amount to five per cent where the amount
exceeds $450,000. The province has no right to duty on
property outside its limits, but such property may be taken
into consideration in calculating the duty payable on
property passing in Ontario.

AUDIT

The auditor is an official not of the government but of
the legislature. He is appointed by the lieutenant-governor
in council and is removable by the same authority on an
address of the legislature. It is his duty to examine and
audit all accounts before payment, and to countersign all
cheques before issue. It is also his duty to see that none of
the appropriations of the legislature are exceeded or directed
from their purposes, and to prepare and submit to the legis
lature annually the public accounts of the province.

216 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

BUREAU OF ARCHIVES

The provincial archivist was appointed in 1901. His
duties are not defined by statute, although some statutory
authority is given his office by an act of 1910 which provides
that records in the custody of the High Court of Justice at
Osgoode Hall may be transferred to the bureau. An exten
sive and interesting collection of historical documents has
been made and is kept at the parliament buildings.

THE OFFICE OF THE KING'S PRINTER

The public printing of the province is done by contract,
but it is the duty of the king's printer to order all printing
on requisition of the various departments of the government
and to audit these accounts. He also purchases all paper
and stationery supplies for the government offices.

VIII

THE MINISTER OF LANDS, FORESTS,
AND MINES 1

r I ^HIS office was styled by the British North America
Act that of the commissioner of Crown Lands, and
so remained until 1905, when the style was changed

as above.

1 MINISTERS OF LANDS, FORESTS, AND MINES

S. Richards .
M. C. Cameron
R. W. Scott
T. B. Pardee
A. S. Hardy
J. M. Gibson

E. J. Davis
A. G. Mackay
J. J. Foy .

F. C. Cochrane
W. H. Hearst

1867-1913

July

16,

1867.

July

25,

1871.

Dec.

21,

1871.

Dec.

4,

I873-

Jan.

18,

1889.

July

21,

1896.

Oct.

21,

1899.

Nov.

22,

1904.

Feb.

8,

1905.

May

30,

1905.

Oct.

12,

I9II.

MINISTER OF LANDS, FORESTS, AND MINES 217

On the acquisition of the province by the crown, all the
lands thereof became vested in the crown and were adminis
tered by the crown for the benefit of the province. Free
grants and sales were made by the executive council, and
there was no statutory enactment upon the subject until
the year 1837, when by the statute of that year free grants
were limited to United Empire Loyalists and their children
and other persons then entitled to free grants by virtue of
orders-in-council.

From the earliest times surveys of the province were
made under the supervision of the surveyor-general, and the
province was laid out in townships and divided into con
cessions and lots. Certain parts were reserved for clergy re
serves, grammar schools, and school lands. Moreover, lands
have been granted under terms that provide for settlement
and assist railroad building, and in recent years in one case
only have lands been sold, and then under stringent con
ditions which provide for colonization. In the new parts of
the province lands are opened to settlement, and 160 acres
are granted to each bona fide settler and a similar acreage to
each of his adult sons.

It is from the forests, however, that the greatest revenue
of the province is obtained. Public forest lands are leased to
the highest bidders of bonus therefor, and an annual rental
is charged. There are further payments of stumpage and
for the timber cut calculated by board measure.

The following is a statement of the revenue of the pro
vince from these sources for the year ending October 31, 191 1,
which also includes the revenue from the department of Mines:

Crown lands, agricultural and mining . . $178,671.89

School lands ...... 8,170.36

Rents from crown and mining lands . . 47,374.96

Miners' licences, permits and fees . . 211,768.57

Royalties and Provincial mine . . . 286,261.99

Acreage profit and gas tax . . . . 209,461.51

Woods and forests bonus, stumpage and rent 1,711,438.87

Miscellaneous ...... 5794-53

Total . . $2,710,242.68

218 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

NATIONAL PARKS

The Algonquin National Park was established in the year
1893. It consisted originally of eighteen townships which
form the watershed of the northern interior of the province.
Within it rise the Magnetawan and the French Rivers, flow
ing into Georgian Bay, and the Madawaska, Mississippi and
other rivers flowing into the Ottawa River. The park is
patrolled by rangers, and is closely preserved as a refuge for
game. Its success is shown in the increase of the number of
beaver within its limits ; in fact, they have multiplied to such
an extent as to jeopardize the maintenance of the Grand
Trunk Railway which passes near it. The province periodi
cally traps the surplus beaver, selling the pelts. The park
is also a refuge for deer, and its lakes and streams abound in
fish. It is rapidly becoming a favourite health resort and
camping ground for tourists.

In the year 1894 Rondeau Provincial Park was estab
lished. It consists of Rondeau Peninsula, which juts out
into Lake Erie. The park is maintained for the preserva
tion of game and is a forest reserve. Under lease from the
government upwards of thirty summer cottages have been
erected in it.

The province also maintains forest reserves in the northern
part of the province. In the summer time these are patrolled
by rangers, for fire protection.

DEPARTMENT OF MINES

It was not till the year 1891 that governmental interest
in mining was first shown in the establishment of the bureau
of Mines as a branch of the department of Crown Lands.
The expansion of the industry necessitated the establishment
of a separate department in the year 1905. The mineral
production of the province for the year 1911 is shown in the
report for that year as follows :

MINISTER OF LANDS, FORESTS, AND MINES 219

MINERAL PRODUCTION OF ONTARIO, 1911

Product

Quantity

Value

Employees

Wages

METALLIC :

$

$

Gold . ounces

2,185

42,637

597

442,519

Silver . ,,

31,507,880

I5>953, 8 95

3,555

2,977,721

Cobalt tons

853

170,890

*

*

Nickel
Copper ,,
Iron ore ,,

17,441
8,966

175,631

3,664,474^
1,281,118;
445,930

2,439
685

1,830,526
348,062

Pig-iron ,,

526,610

7,716,314

3,633

2,927,573

29,275,258

10,909

8,526,40!

Less Ontario iron ore (67,631

tons) smelted into pig-iron

172,391

NON-METALLIC :

29,102,867

Arsenic . tons

3,806

74,609

*

*

Brick, common . No.
Tile, drain . . ,,

354,546,000
21,630,000

2,801,971!
349,545/

3,M9

1,320,677

Brick, paving . ,,
,, pressed . ,,
Building and crushed stone
Calcium carbide . tons
Cement, Portland bbl.

4,522,400
52,763,914

3,010,849

86,685"!
564,630;
892,627

84,437

3,640,642

505
1,152
50

271,343
516,643
18,497
898,256

Corundum . . tons
Feldspar

1,471
17,697

147,158
51,610

'199
76

124,491
26,580

Fluorspar .
Graphite, refined
Gypsum
Iron pyrites
Lime . . . bush.

3

894

20,335
43,629
2,469,773

200
36,492
32,535
118,457
402,340

55

100

172

343

33,774
10,000
114,655
148,078

Mica . . . tons
Natural gas ....
Peat . . . tons

322
"1,180

43,058
2,186,762
2,830

60
287

21

24,782
183,663
2,964

Petroleum . . imp. gal

10,102,081

353,573

5"t

3 I 4, S 5 I
262

Phosphate of lime tons
Pottery ....
Quartz . . tons

Coif

20

56,723
88,689

240
50,500
64,405

38
no
216

16,752

40,459
121,477

oau ... ,,
Sewer pipe ....
Talc, ground . tons

5,404

410,064
47,725

250

38

126,099
17,530

12,873,930

8,804

4,331,833

Add metallic production .

29,102,867

10,909

8,526,401

Total production

...

41,976,797

19,713

12,858,234

* Included in statistics for silver.

t Refining works only.

Gold bullion was produced in small quantities from
fourteen properties during the year 1911, the principal
producers being the Canadian Exploration Company's pro
perty at Long Lake, and the mines at the Lake of the Woods,

220 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

Larder Lake, and Shoal Lake. The most interesting, how
ever, on account of the bonanza prospect almost in hand,
was in the Porcupine district. These mines are, as yet, in
a state of development, but there is every indication of a
phenomenal production.

The production of silver from the Cobalt district increased
from $111,887 m I 94 to $ I 5>953> 8 47 m 1911. From the
point of view of the mining speculator it was interesting, as
it yielded dividends on producing properties to the extent of
$30,198,004.44 during that period.

The most prolific mines of the province are, however,
those of nickel, which produce about seventy per cent of the
world's supply.

IX

THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION 1
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

DOWN to the year 1876 the direct control of the schools
of Ontario was exercised by the council of Educa
tion. In that year the office of minister of Education
was created and the department of Education established.

The public schools are free to children between the ages
of five and twenty-one. They are non-denominational, and
no pupil is required to read or study from any religious book
or to join in any religious exercises objected to by his or her
parents.

The schools are controlled by boards of trustees. In
rural districts the townships are divided into school sections,
and the trustees, three in number holding office for three
years, one retiring each year, are elected in December by the
ratepayers for the ensuing year. The vote may be by ballot
if so demanded. In urban districts each ward is represented
by two trustees. Where there is no division by wards the

1 MINISTERS OF EDUCATION, 1876-1913

Adam Crooks ......... Feb. 19, 1876.

G. W. Ross Nov. 23, 1883.

Richard Harcourt. ........ Oct. 21, 1899.

R. A. Pyne Feb. 8, 1905.

THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION 221

board consists of six members. The members are elected
in January if a ballot is required. Usually, however, the
trustees are elected at the election for municipal officers on
the first Monday in January. The trustees are required by
the act to hold meetings, and the methods by which they
shall maintain the schools are precisely set out. The most
important of their duties is to submit to the municipal
council, at such time in the year as may be required, an
estimate of the expenses for maintaining the schools under
their charge.

It is then the duty of the municipal council to include in
the assessment rate such a levy as may be necessary to pro
duce the fund necessary for school purposes, for the purpose
of purchasing school sites, erecting schools, drill halls, gym
nasia or teachers' residences, or for repairs or enlargements of
these buildings or for the purchase of furniture, furnishings,
apparatus or school libraries. The board may apply to the
municipal council for the issue of debentures, and the interest
and sinking fund are raised in the same manner as charges
for maintenance. In urban districts the council may refuse
to issue the debentures, and in that event a by-law for the
purpose is submitted to the ratepayers, and if they approve,
the by-law must be passed and the debentures issued.

A British subject, duly qualified, who passes the pre
scribed examination, is entitled to a teacher's certificate.
These certificates are graded. Only holders of such certi
ficates are qualified to teach in the schools. The duties of
the teachers in conducting the schools, classes, examinations,
and in watching over the health of the pupils are precisely
defined. For the purposes of discipline a teacher may sus
pend any pupil guilty of persistent truancy or opposition to
authority, neglect of duty or use of profane language, or
conduct injurious to the moral tone of the school. On sus
pension it is the duty of the teacher to notify the parents of
the pupil and the board, and there is an appeal to the board.

School inspectors are appointed by the county councils.
Urban boards may, however, appoint inspectors for their
schools. The inspectors in the districts without county
municipal organizations are appointed by the governor in

222 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

council and are paid by the provinces. One half the salary
of the county inspectors is paid by the province. Inspectors
must devote their whole time to their duties, visit every class
room of their districts as often as required by the minister,
and furnish monthly reports of inspection. On their order
the municipal or legislative grant may be withheld where
the school is not kept open, where the board fails to make
reports or to comply with the regulations of the depart
ment, and where text-books other than those authorized by
the department are used.

HIGH SCHOOLS

The secondary education of the province is conducted
in the high schools and collegiate institutes. In the month
of June of each year a uniform examination is held through
out the province called the Entrance Examination, under the
supervision of boards of examiners provided for by the High
Schools Act.

High school districts are established by the county coun
cils. The schools are controlled by boards of trustees, with
duties similar in their extended field to those of the public
school boards. The cost of construction and maintenance
are provided for in the rates in a way similar to the public
school charges.

Graduates In arts of a university within the British
dominions only may teach in high schools and collegiate
institutes. The regulations of the department provide pre
cise regulations regarding the qualifications of teachers of
various subjects and the required number in the establish
ment of a school. These schools are subject to inspection
by inspectors directly attached to the department. The
boards regulate the fees payable by students. During the
year ending October 31, 1911, the province contributed
$153,150.88 to the schools of this class.

BOARDS OF EDUCATION

Where a high school district does not extend beyond the
limits of a city, town, or village, the municipal council may
declare by resolution that it is expedient to form a municipal

THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION 223

board of education. Thereupon the control of high and
public schools passes to the control of such board. In cities
of more than 50,000 these boards each consist of fourteen
members, two of whom are appointed by the separate school
board. Where the population is less than that number, the
board has nine members, one appointed by the separate
school board.

NORMAL SCHOOLS

For the purpose of educating teachers, normal schools
are established at Toronto, Ottawa, Peterborough, London,
Hamilton, Stratford, and North Bay. These schools are
directly under the control of the department.

SEPARATE SCHOOLS

Separate schools were provided for in the school law of
1841, and the statute of 1863, which was passed at the instance
of the Roman Catholic minority of the province, fixed their
status. They are not, however, necessarily Roman Catholic.
Protestant ratepayers have under certain circumstances the
right to establish schools in places where they are found
necessary on account of religious belief ; separate schools for
coloured children may also be established. The continuance
of such schools is guaranteed by the British North America
Act, section 93 of which, after conferring exclusive juris
diction with respect to education upon the province, provides
as follows :

(1) Nothing in any such law shall prejudicially affect
any Right or Privilege with respect to Denominational
Schools which any Class of Persons have by law in the
Province at the Union :

(2) All the Powers, Privileges and Duties at the Union
by law conferred and imposed in Upper Canada on the
Separate Schools and School Trustees of the Queen's
Roman Catholic subjects shall be and the same are
hereby extended to the Dissentient Schools of the Queen's
Protestant and Roman Catholic subjects in Quebec :

(3) Where in any Province a system of Separate or
Dissentient Schools exists by Law at the Union or is
thereafter established by the Legislature of the Pro
vince, an appeal shall lie to the Governor General in

224 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

Council from any Act or Decision of any Provincial
Authority affecting any Right or Privilege of the Pro
testant or Roman Catholic minority of the Queen's
subjects in relation to Education.

In all essential features the separate schools are managed
similarly to the public schools. The text-books are, as a rule,
similar to those of the public schools. On the creation of a
separate school district the ratepayers who desire to support
the school express their desire to the assessor to be placed
on the list of supporters thereof, and their school taxes are
for the support of such school, no assessment being made
towards the public schools. The inspectors of the separate
schools are appointed by the department.

THE UNIVERSITY

At the head of the educational system of the province
stands the University of Toronto the provincial university.
It is the result of an evolution from King's College estab
lished by royal charter in 1834. In 1887, owing to the efforts
of George W. Ross, a federation was established, consisting
of the provincial university, undenominational ; Victoria
University, Methodist ; St Michael's College, Roman Catholic;
Wycliffe College, Low Church Anglican ; and Knox College,
Presbyterian. Later on Trinity, High Church Anglican, joined
the federation. It was at first, like London University, a
purely examining body. However, by the act of 1906, which
is the present constitution of the university, it is partly a teach
ing body, having professors and lecturers in certain subjects,
more particularly in the sciences, one object being to relieve
the colleges and universities not so well endowed from the large
expense of establishing and maintaining laboratories.

The government of the university is in the hands of three
governing bodies :

(i) The board of governors of the university and University
College, which possesses all the powers of the crown, consists
of the chancellor, elected by the graduates of the university ;
the president of the university, appointed by the board ;
and twenty-three members, British subjects and residents of
Ontario, appointed by the lieutenant-governor in council.

THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION

225

The government, conduct, management, and control of the
university and University College and of all the property,
revenue, business, and affairs thereof is vested in the board.
The appointment of all professors, lecturers, heads of faculties,
clerks and officials for business affairs lies with the board,
and it controls all investments, endowments, and property of
the university and college.

(2) The senate of the university a larger body which
includes ex-officio members representative of the faculties,
federated universities and colleges, and representatives of the
graduates controls the academic side of university affairs :
the curriculum, examinations, degrees (except in theology),
calendars, the erection of faculties, chairs and courses of
instruction, appeals from faculty council, and other similar
matters.

(3) The caput consists of the president of the university,
the chairman, the principal of University College, the heads
of federated universities and colleges, and the deans of the
faculties. The duties of the caput are largely disciplinary.

There is another body convocation which is made up of
all the graduates of the university and federated universities.
It is ' the public ' in the university. It elects representa
tives to the senate and expresses its views for communi
cation to the board of governors and senate on matters
affecting the university.

PROVINCIAL UNIVERSITY AND SCHOOL STATISTICS FOR
YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1912

Professors

Associate
Professors

Associates

Lecturers

Permanent
Demon

Sessional
Appoint

strators

ments

University

18

IS

18

72

University College .

8

8

8

8

Faculty of Medicine

15

22

9

3

2

76

Faculty of Applied

Science

8

5

15

43

Faculty of Household

Science

.. .

2

i

...

5

Faculty of Forestry .

i

...

3

...

Faculty of Education

i

7

10

...

3

VOL. XVII

226 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

Students in Attendance at the University

Faculty of Arts .... . 2352

Faculty of Medicine ... . 5 1 9

Faculty of Applied Science 79 8

Faculty of Household Science . 134

Faculty of Education . . 35

Faculty of Forestry . 4

University College . . IIQ 6

Victoria College . 5 T 4

Trinity College . . l6 3

St Michael's College . -83
Of the 6014 students 1052 were women.

The balance-sheet totalled . $5.568,537-69

and the assets are shown as follows :

Lands, buildings and contents . . $4>45 1 >353-6i

Unproductive lands . . i5534 I -96

Leased properties ... . 7 2 7 .345 -97

Investments and cash . . . 234,496.15

$5,568,537-69

Receipts for the Year

Provincial grants . . $47>3 2 5-58

Students' fees . . . 264,895.77

Interest and rentals . . . 60,637.62

Residence and dining-hall receipts 55,717.86

Miscellaneous 1 1.979-95

$863,556.78
Deficit ....... 21,255.65

,812.43

Expenditure

Administration $154,798.96

Faculty of Arts . 278,761.50

Faculty of Medicine . 79,851.49

Faculty of Applied Science. . 136,187.04

Faculty of Household Science . 11,100.40

Faculty of Education . . 52,027.37

Faculty of Forestry . . ",33i-34

Residence and dining-hall . - 47,140.62

THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION 227

Miscellaneous ...... $50,5 18.97

Capital charges ..... 54> I 3 I -57

$875,849.26

Written off trust funds .... 8,245.66

Interest on overdraft .... 717.51

$884,812.43

The Library contains 127,317 bound volumes and 39,392
pamphlets.

I. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

A. Public Schools

Number of public schools in 1911 . . . 5921
Number of enrolled pupils of all ages in the
public schools during the year (exclusive
of continuation, kindergarten, and night
school pupils) ..... 400,552
Average daily attendance of pupils . . 244,674
Percentage of average attendance to total atten
dance 6ro8

Number of persons employed as teachers (ex
clusive of continuation, kindergarten, and
night school teachers) in the public schools :
men, 1409 ; women, 7940 ; total . . 9349

Number of teachers who attended Normal

Schools ....... 6007

Number of teachers who attended Normal

College or Faculty of Education . . 528

Number of teachers with a university degree . 87

Average annual salary for male teachers . . $767

Average annual salary for female teachers . $518

Average experience of male teachers . . 11*90 years
Average experience of female teachers . . 7*28 years
Amount expended for public schoolhouses (sites

and buildings) ..... $1,995,856

Amount expended for teachers' salaries . . $5,196,563
Amount expended for all other purposes . . $1,813,975
Total amount expended on public schools . $9,006,394
Cost per pupil (enrolled attendance) . . $22.48

228 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

B. Roman Catholic Separate Schools

Number of Roman Catholic separate schools in

1911 495

Number of enrolled pupils of all ages 59.396

Average daily attendance of pupils 37>3 10
Percentage of average attendance to total

attendance ...... 62*81

Number of teachers . . . . H93

Amount expended for schoolhouses (sites and

buildings) $168,603

Amount expended for teachers' salaries . $413,650

Amount expended for all other purposes . $3 I 5> 6 37
Total amount expended on Roman Catholic

separate schools . . . $897,890

Cost per pupil (enrolled attendance) . . $15.11

C. Protestant Separate Schools

Number of Protestant separate schools (in
cluded with public schools, A) in 191 1 6
Number of enrolled pupils . 4 2 4
Average daily attendance of pupils 260

D. Kindergartens

Number of kindergartens in 1911 . . 194

Number of pupils enrolled . 20,677

Average daily attendance of pupils 759 J

Number of teachers engaged 35 8

E. Night Public Schools

Number of night schools in 1911-12 21

Number of pupils enrolled . . 1573

Average daily attendance of pupils 35 *

Number of teachers engaged . 4

II. SECONDARY SCHOOLS

A. High Schools and Collegiate Institutes

Number of high schools (including 43 collegiate

institutes) in 1911 . T 4 8

Number of pupils enrolled in high schools 32,227

Average daily attendance of pupils 20,177

THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION 229

Number of teachers in high schools . . 898

Average annual salary, principals . . . $1670

Average annual salary, assistants . . . $1241

Average annual salary, all teachers. . . $1312

Highest salary paid ..... $5000

Amount expended for teachers' salaries . . $1,141,124
Amount expended for schoolhouses (sites and

buildings) . . . $47<>,757

Amount expended for all other purposes . $336,177

Total amount expended on high schools . . $1,948,058

Cost per pupil (enrolled attendance) . . $60.44

B. Continuation Schools

Number of continuation schools, 1911 . . 129

Number of pupils enrolled . . . 5753

Average daily attendance of pupils . . 34^7

Number of teachers . . . . . 218

Average annual salary, principals . . . $1000

Average annual salary, assistants . . . $702

Highest salary paid ..... $1600

Amount expended on teachers' salaries . . $177,057

Amount expended for schoolhouses . . $40,907

Amount expended for all other purposes . . $34,116

Total amount expended on continuation schools $252,080

Cost per pupil (enrolled attendance) . . $43.82

C. Night High Schools

Number of night high schools in 1911-12 . 2

Number of pupils enrolled .... 77

Average daily attendance of pupils . . 34

Number of teachers engaged ... 7

III. GENERAL

Elementary and Secondary Schools

Total population of the province, 1911 . . 2*523,358
Pupils enrolled in elementary and secondary

schools, 1911 ..... 520,255

Average daily attendance .... 313,624

Percentage of total population enrolled . . 20 '61

Average cost per head of total population in 191 1 $4.79

230 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

X

THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT 1

IMMEDIATELY after Confederation the departments of
Agriculture and Public Works were united under the
commissioner of Agriculture and Public Works. It
was not until the year 1874 that these departments were
separated and that distinct portfolios were established.

The most important duty of this department is the erec
tion, care, and maintenance of the public buildings of the
government, and there is a staff of engineers, architects, and
other officials for this purpose. The second service rendered
by the department is the construction and repair of coloniza
tion roads in the newer portions of the province. The
department also looks after the maintenance of the levels
of the lakes, canals, and other such works. The modern
movement for providing good roads is also fostered by this
department, and the provincial government is assisting the
municipalities in this regard. In the year 1902 the sum of
$1,000,000 was set apart for the purpose, and grants there
from have been made from time to time in aid of the establish
ment of good roads.

GAME AND FISHERIES

The game laws have been enacted and administered by
the province without question since Confederation. The
ownership of the game in the domain of the crown followed

1 COMMISSIONERS OF PUBLIC WORKS, 1867-1913

JohnCarling. . Commissioner of Agriculture and Public July 16, 1867.

Works

Archibald M c Kellar Commissioner of Agriculture and Public Dec. 20, 1871.

Works

C. F. Fraser . . Commissioner of Public Works . . Apr. 4, 1874.

W. Harty . . Commissioner of Public Works . . May 30, 1894.

F. R. Latchford . Commissioner of Public Works . . Oct. 21, 1899.

W. A. Charlton . Commissioner of Public Works . . Nov. 22, 1904.

J. O. Reaiune . Commissioner of Public Works . . Feb. 8, 1905.

THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT 231

provincial ownership thereof, and no question respecting it
has arisen. The province enacted regulations respecting the
open and close season for hunting the game which abounds
in the northern districts of the province moose, deer, beaver,
marten, otter, etc. This branch of the department also
issues licences for deer hunters, and has provided special
regulations respecting the number of animals that may be
killed and the method of transportation and export.

During the years immediately following Confederation
the fishery regulations were considered to be within the com
petence of the Dominion parliament alone. It was not
until 1898 that the question was disposed of by the Privy
Council, and it was decided that the fish of the inland lakes
and rivers were the property of the province. Thereupon
the Fisheries branch of the department was established.
There is at present a dual control of fishery regulations. It
has been held by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
that the jurisdiction to impose regulations for fishing which
covers the close season and such other data is within the
jurisdiction of the Dominion alone, but as the property of
the fish in provincial waters is in the province, the right to
grant licences to take fish is within the administration of the
province. For the purpose of enforcing provincial regula
tions fishery overseers have been appointed for the various
districts of the province.

BUREAU OF LABOUR

In the year 1900 the bureau of Labour was established,
its objects being to collect, assort, systematize, and publish
information and statistics relating to employment, wages,
and hours of labour throughout the province, co-operation,
strikes or other labour difficulties, trade unions, labour
organizations, the relations between labour and capital, and
other subjects of interest to working men, with such infor
mation relating to the commercial, industrial, and sanitary
condition of working men and the permanent prosperity of
the industries of the province as the bureau may be able to

232 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

gather. As will be seen from this description, the duties of
the branch are largely clerical, and there is no direct regula
tion of trade disputes introduced or carried on by the bureau.

XI

THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE *
A LTHOUGH the office of minister of Agriculture has

existed since Confederation, it was not until 1910
that the department was organized by statute. The
department is for the purpose of fostering, promoting, en
couraging, and developing agriculture, which is the greatest
industry of the province. For this purpose the duties of the
department as set out in the act are as follows :

(a) The administration of the laws relating to agri
culture in all its branches ;

(b) The collection of statistics and the management
of the bureau of Industries ;

(c) The Ontario Agricultural College ;

(d) The Ontario Veterinary College ;

(e) Farm forestry ;

(/) Immigration and colonization ;
(g) Inspection of factories and shops ;
(h) Administration of the statute respecting stationary
engineers.

(a) The administration of the laws relating to agricul
ture covers such details as the prevention of the spread of
noxious diseases of animals and plants ; the administration

COMMISSIONERS AND MINISTERS OF AGRICULTURE, 1867-1913

John Carling. . Commissioner of Agriculture and Public July 16, 1867.

Works

Archibald M c Kellar Commissioner of Agriculture and Public Dec. 20, 1871.

Works

S. C. Wood . . Commissioner of Agriculture and Secretary July 23, 1875.

and Registrar

James Young Commissioner of Agriculture and Treasurer June 2,1883.

A.M.Ross . Commissioner of Agriculture and Treasurer Nov. 2, 1883.

Charles Drury Minister of Agriculture .... May i, 1888.

John Dry den Minister of Agriculture .... Sept. 16, 1890.

N. Monteith . Minister of Agriculture .... Feb. 8, 1905.

J. S. Duff . Minister of Agriculture .... Oct. 6, 1908.

THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 233

of the affairs of agricultural associations, including fall fairs,
farmers' institutes, experimental union for the study and
comparison of agricultural methods and the spread of general
agricultural information. The comprehensive and widespread
system of farmers' associations for the study of agricultural
methods, the improvement of the breed of agricultural
animals, and other such purposes, has been fostered by the
department, and there exist the following associations :

The Fruit-Growers' Association of Ontario,

The Entomological Society of Ontario,

The Dairymen's Association of Eastern Ontario,

The Dairymen's Association of Western Ontario,

The Western Ontario Poultry Association,

The Eastern Ontario Poultry Association,

The Ontario Bee-keepers' Association,

The Ontario Agricultural and Experimental Union,

The Dominion Sheep- Breeders' Association,

The Dominion Swine- Breeders' Association,

The Dominion Cattle- Breeders' Association,

The Dominion Horsemen's Association,

The Ontario Horse- Breeders' Association,

The Ontario Vegetable-Growers' Association,

The Gardeners' and Florists' Association,

The Ontario Corn-Growers' Association.

(b) The bureau of Industries was established in the year
1882. Its main purpose is to gather agricultural and muni
cipal statistics throughout the province. It also superintends
the production and distribution of bulletins for the informa
tion of the farming community.

(c) The Ontario Agricultural College was organized in
1874 near the city of Guelph in the county of Wellington.
It not only gives instruction to students in active attendance
throughout their course, but gives also short courses for
instruction in various branches of husbandry. The staff
consists of seventeen professors, three associate professors,
seven lecturers, and twenty demonstrators and instructors.
Associated with the college is the Macdonald Institute,
established and endowed by Sir William Macdonald of
Montreal. The college is affiliated to the University of

234 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

Toronto, and students proceed to the degree of Bachelor of
Agriculture.

(d) The Ontario Veterinary College was recently estab
lished as a provincial institution, being a continuation under
government control of the Ontario Veterinary College, a
proprietary institution which existed in Toronto for many
years past. It has been fortunate in its situation beside
the University of Toronto, for its students are thus enabled
to take advantage of the instruction of many of the most
capable professors and lecturers at the university.

(e) Recently the professor of Forestry of the Ontario
Agricultural College was appointed forester of the depart
ment of Lands, Forests, and Mines, and he supervises the
farm forestry work of this department. There is a forest
nursery in Norfolk County for the culture of seedlings and
plants. During the year 1913 some 350,000 plants were dis
tributed for experimental planting. The work of this branch
is promoted by the distribution of bulletins.

(/) Immigration is a subject within provincial as well as
Dominion control. The province maintains offices at London
and Liverpool for the spread of information to intending
immigrants. However, the main work done is in placing
farm labourers and domestic servants after their arrival in
the province. During the year 1913 10,371 were cared for
by the bureau and the Salvation Army.

(g) The Ontario Factories Act was passed in the year
1884. It largely followed the corresponding statute of the
United Kingdom, and made provision for the protection of
children and women employed in factories, regulating the
minimum age of employment, the protection of employees
from dangerous machinery, the prevention of fires, and
sanitation. Authority was given for the appointment of
inspectors, and their duties were assigned. The statute law
on the subject is now consolidated in 3-4 Geo. v, cap. 60
(1913), the Factory, Shop, and Office Building Act.

(h) By I Geo. V, cap. 46, authority was given for the
appointment of a board of examiners of stationary engineers.
The provisions are not applicable to persons operating a
boiler or engine of less than fifty horse-pov/er, or to heating

SPECIAL COMMISSIONS 235

plants using a pressure of less than twenty pounds per square
inch. Only persons who have passed an examination of the
board, and have its certificate, may be employed as stationary
engineers.

XII

SPECIAL COMMISSIONS
NIAGARA FALLS PARK COMMISSION

THE commission of the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls
Park was established in the year 1885 pursuant to 48
Viet. cap. 21, an act for the preservation of natural
scenery about Niagara Falls. It had its origin in a suggestion
made by the Marquess of Dufferin, when governor-general
of Canada, that the Province of Ontario and the State of
New York should unite in preserving the beauty of this
wonderful cataract. The commission was organized imme
diately after the passing of the act, and at once entered upon
its new duties. The work originally contemplated has been
extended so as to include the whole river bank from Fort
Erie to Niagara-on-the-Lake. The park proper, immedi
ately adjoining the falls, consists of 196 acres ; Queenston
Heights, surrounding Brock's monument, 88 acres ; Niagara
Glen, Whirlpool Point, and Fletcher's Flats, 75 acres ; the
old fort (?) ground at Fort Erie, 17 acres ; Butler's Burying
Ground, I acre ; Lundy's Lane Burying Ground, 3 acres ;
the chain reserve along the Niagara River from the park
proper to Niagara-on-the-Lake, a distance of thirteen miles,
together with all the ungranted lands lying between the
reserve and the water's edge, 260 acres ; and the chain
reserve along the Niagara River from Chippawa immedi
ately south of the park proper to Fort Erie, a distance of
sixteen miles, 100 acres.

The commission is self-sustaining, its revenue being
derived from hydraulic leases held by electrical developing
companies at the Falls, and various franchises which have
been granted. The capital expenditure is made from the
proceeds of the sale of debentures issued by the commission
and guaranteed by the province.

236 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

RAILWAY AND MUNICIPAL BOARD

This board was established at the session of the year 1906,
6 Edw. VII, cap. 31. Control of the construction, operation,
and maintenance of railways is within the duties of the board.
The railways subject to the control of the board are those
incorporated by statute of the Province of Ontario, the
undertakings of which have not been declared to be ' for the
general benefit of Canada.' Before any work can be done
towards the construction of a railway, plans, surveys, and
books of reference must be filed with the board, and any
alteration must receive the approval of the board. It is
the duty of the board to ascertain that the plans and books
of reference satisfy the provisions of the general railway
act and the special act incorporating the company. The
construction of farm crossings, highway crossings, bridges,
tunnels, and crossings of and junctions with other railways
subject to the board are also dealt with by the board.

The accommodation at stations, junctions, and other
stopping-places is also subject to the control of the board,
and if it is not sufficient for public purposes, the board may
order any deficiency to be remedied. The equipment and
accommodation to be provided for trains are established by
the act and are subject to the control of the board in case
of complaint being made. If it should be represented that a
railway subject to the board or any part of it is dangerous
to the public, the board may order such construction or
repairs of the line as may be necessary to make it safe.

Rates are subject to the approval of the board, as also
are the rules and regulations affecting the public.

Railway companies are required to make such annual
returns as may be demanded by the board. These are de
fined by the Railway Act. The board is authorized to hear
and to determine any complaint that a railway company or
municipal corporation has failed to comply with any order
of the board, and also to entertain an application for an
order. On subjects otherwise authorized to be dealt with
the board may issue mandatory orders as well as injunctions.

Under the assessment act there is an appeal to the board

SPECIAL COMMISSIONS 237

in matters formerly put to a board of county judges. The
board also has jurisdiction in matters which under the muni
cipal act were formerly subject to the lieutenant-governor in
council, in questions of annexations or additions to cities or
towns or the alteration of municipal boundaries. It has
also jurisdiction to confirm municipal by-laws for the purpose
of raising funds to supplement sums authorized by the rate
payers of municipalities, and to confirm by-laws relating to
public highways, where confirmation was formerly required
to be by order-in-council.

There is an appeal from the board to the Court of Appeal
of Ontario on questions of law or of the jurisdiction of the
board.

HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER COMMISSION

This commission was first established in 1906 for the
purpose of procuring electricity and transmitting the same
to the various municipalities, under contracts entered into
for that purpose. The act of 1906 was repealed and re-
enacted in the year 1907, and since that time amending acts
and acts approving of contracts entered into with various
municipalities have been passed at each session of the legis
lature.

The statute of 1906 is 6 Edw. VII, cap. 15, an act to pro
vide for the transmission of electric power to municipalities.
The act of 1907 is 7 Edw. VII, cap. 19, and bears the same
title. The short title given to these statutes is the Power
Commission Act.

The commission consists of three members, of whom one
must be a member of the executive council of the province.
It is appointed by the lieutenant-governor in council, and one
of the members is named chairman by the same authority.
The commission has authority to appoint engineers, account
ants, and other officials necessary for the purpose of carrying
out the act. It has wide powers of expropriation for the
purpose of erecting transmission lines, stepping -up and
stepping-down stations, and other work necessary for the
carrying out of the purposes of the commission.

238 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

Immediately after the appointment of the commission a
detailed survey of the water powers of the province was
made. The reports of the commission from time to time
show the various water powers, their capacity, their suit
ability for development, and give in general a complete
inventory of the power capacity of the province.

On March 19, 1908, a contract was entered into between
the commission and the Ontario Power Company. This
contract was approved by 8 Edw. VII, cap. 22, and is set
out as a schedule to that act. It provides for the delivery
to the commission of power to the extent of 100,000 horse
power. This contract sets out in detail the arrangement
under which the commission obtained power for transmission
to the municipalities. Thereupon the commission set about
establishing its transmission lines.

The report of the commission for 1912 shows a total
mileage of 280*3, with a total number of towers erected of
3040, total mileage of power cable 1103*4, and of ground
cable 708*3.

The first actual operation occurred on May 18, 1910, when
the Niagara Transformer Station was connected with the
Ontario Power Company for the purposes of a test. The
first energy was delivered to the Niagara Step-up Trans
former Station from the Ontario Power Company at 12,000
volts on August 25, 1910, and on September 24 of that
year the no,ooo-volt lines between Niagara and Berlin
by way of Dundas, Guelph, and Preston, a distance of
approximately 100 miles, were operated for the first time.
Since then the extension of the system throughout the
western part of the province has been continuous.

The statutes under which the commission operates provide
that any one or more of the ratepayers in a municipality, the
corporation of which has not entered into a contract with
the commission, may apply to the corporation to obtain
from the commission a supply of electrical power for the
use of such ratepayers for lighting, heating, and power pur
poses. The council of the corporation shall thereupon
request the commission to supply the electrical power or
energy as mentioned in the application. Thereupon the

SPECIAL COMMISSIONS 239

commission is required to furnish to the corporation an
estimate of the maximum cost per horse-power at which the
electrical power will be supplied at the point of development
or of its delivery to the commission, and an estimate of the
cost of constructing and providing transmission lines by
means of which the amount of electrical power or energy
required is to be supplied, and of maintaining the same, and
may furnish to the corporation plans and specifications of
the works, plant, machinery, and appliances necessary for
the distribution of such power or energy and an estimate of
the cost. Within a month after the delivery of these esti
mates the council, at a special meeting, may pass a by-law for
entering into a contract with the commission for the supply,
and the corporation may enter into such a contract without
submitting a by-law for that purpose to the ratepayers.

The general scheme is that the commission shall provide
transmission lines and deliver power at high tension to the
municipalities, then step-down this power and distribute it
to the users in the municipality. In several districts the
commission itself has established stepping-down stations and
low-tension transmission lines.

The reports of the commission show that the plant is in
a most efficient condition, that great saving to power users
has been effected by the construction of these transmission
lines, and that from a financial standpoint the work of the
commission has been most economical.

At the present time (1913) the commission is taking steps
to interest the farming community and the township munici
palities in providing electricity for use upon the farm.

THE TlMISKAMING AND NORTHERN ONTARIO
RAILWAY COMMISSION

The Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway Com
mission was created, under the Timiskaming and Northern
Ontario Railway Act, in 1902. The commission was appointed
by the lieutenant-governor in council, and it consists of not
more than five and not less than three members. Immedi
ately after the commission was appointed, steps were taken

240 PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE ORGANIZATION

to build a railway from North Bay to a point on Lake Timis-
kaming. It was originally intended to be a colonization road
for the purpose of developing the arable lands to the north
and west of Lake Timiskaming. During the course of con
struction the valuable mineral deposits in the neighbourhood
of Cobalt were discovered ; in fact, the opening up of the
mineral districts and this part of Northern Ontario is entirely
due to the construction of the railway. Subsequently the
line was extended, and it is now in operation to Cochrane, on
the main line of the Canadian National Transcontinental
Railway. From North Bay to Englehart the mileage is
138, and from Englehart to Cochrane 114*3 a total of 252*3
miles. There are three branches, the first to Charlton,
mileage 7- 8, the second to Kerr Lake, 3-9, and the third to
Haileybury, 1-64.

The commission has a large revenue, not only from the
traffic over the road, but also from royalties on minerals
taken from the right of way and station yards at Cobalt.
During the year ending October 31, 1912, there was a net
profit on the operation of the road of $510,000. This, of
course, is irrespective of interest charges upon the capital
bond issue ($17,535,662.69) for the construction of the road.

The commission has entered into a contract with the
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway for the joint operation of the
road from Cochrane to North Bay. The first train from the
West, consisting of twenty car-loads of wheat, passed over
the road to Port Colborne on December 30, 1912. This
wheat was immediately converted into flour and shipped by
way of St John, New Brunswick, to Cape Town.

FINANCE AND TAXATION

VOL. XVII

EARLY PROVINCIAL FINANCE OF UPPER CANADA

THE quasi-independence of the colonies in a financial
sense began with the passing of an act in I777-78, 1
a portion of which is still upon the imperial statute-
book. This act was entitled 'An Act for removing all Doubts
and Apprehensions concerning Taxation by the Parliament
of Great Britain in any of the Colonies, Provinces and Plan
tations in North America and the West Indies.' Under this
act the king and parliament of Great Britain undertook that
they would ' not impose any duty, tax or assessment what
ever, payable in any of His Majesty's colonies . . . excepting
only such duties as it may be expedient to impose for the
regulation of commerce.' 2 The exception in favour of the
control of imperial parliament in respect to customs duties
remained until after the adoption by Great Britain of a policy
of free trade. In addition to the duties which the province
was authorized to levy by the parliament of Great Britain,
the expenses of government were defrayed from a fund which
was provided by means of licence duties. 8 Shortly after the
province received relative autonomy under the act cited,
these licence duties were increased by successive acts beginning
with an act of I793. 4 In connection with the customs duties

1 18 Geo. ni, cap. 12, 1777-78. See, e.g., The Statutes Revised (London, 1889),
vol. ii. The other principal imperial acts dealing with the government of
Upper Canada were 5 Geo. m, cap. 7, 14 Geo. in, cap. 83, 14 Geo. in, cap. 88,
and 31 Geo. in, cap. 31.

8 The authority of imperial parliament in respect to duties was abrogated
by 9 and 10 Viet. cap. 94 (1846-47).

3 This fund was created in 1775 under the British act 14 Geo. m, cap. 88.

4 33 Geo. in, cap. 13 (1793).

213

244 FINANCE AND TAXATION

the Province of Upper Canada entered, in 1799, into an agree
ment with the lower province which was subject to repeated
revision. 1 In 1807 2 the province began to derive a small
revenue from the issue of licences to pedlars, etc., and in
1810 3 from a duty on billiard tables, an indication of increas
ing luxury. Meanwhile the expenses of the province con
sisted largely of the salaries of officials, although many of
them were paid by fees. The stipends of the members of the
house of assembly were paid by their respective constitu
encies, the amounts being collected by means of a local rate. 4
Expenses otherwise consisted in grants for the building of
bridges, for making roads, and for the encouragement of the
cultivation and exportation of hemp, for which there were
numerous acts.

Financial questions played a very important role in the
political controversies which continued without interruption
between 1820 and 1840. During this period the revenue of
Upper Canada was derived chiefly from two sources from
customs duties and from the territorial and casual revenues
of the crown. The customs duties were levied as regards
their greater part in the lower province, and the amounts of
them were divided between the provinces Lower Canada
receiving three-fifths, and Upper Canada receiving two-fifths
of the aggregate amount of the duties. 6

The territorial and casual revenues of the crown were
derived from the sales and leases of crown lands and from
timber licences and the like. The latter revenues were sub
ject to the control of the lieutenant-governor in council,

1 This agreement was ratified by 39 Geo. in, cap. 5 (1799) and continued
by 41 Geo. in, cap. 4 (1801) and numerous other acts. It was repealed by 58
Geo. in, cap. 13 (1818).

2 47 Geo. in, cap. 9 (1807).

3 50 Geo. in, cap. 6 (1810). * Cf. infra.

5 It was alleged that four-fifths of the exports and ' by far the greater pro
portion of the imports ' were due to Upper Canada (cf. Report of a Select Com
mittee of the House of A ssembly on the Political State of the Provinces of Upper and
Lower Canada, Toronto, 1838, p. 45). The upper province therefore demanded
amendment of 14 Geo. in, cap. 88 (1774) and of 31 Geo. in, cap. 31 (1791) i Q order
that the Island of Montreal might be annexed to Upper Canada, and by this means
that a seaport be provided (cf. ibid., p. 45 et seq.). This course was recommended
by Sir Francis Bond Head (cf. ' Memorandum on the Present Political State of
the Canadas' in A Narrative, London, 1839, pp. 121-37).

EARLY PROVINCIAL FINANCE 245

and expenditures out of them were not subject to vote by
the house of assembly. 1

In the lower province the revenue derived from customs
duties was practically sufficient for the needs of the public
service. Indeed, works of local utility were very generally
undertaken at the charge of the province. One result of this
condition was the retardation of the development of muni
cipal institutions and the absence of local assessments. 2 In
the Province of Upper Canada, on the contrary, the magni
tude of the public works undertaken in the general as con
trasted with the local interest was great enough to absorb
all the resources of the provincial revenue, and even to plunge
the province into a public debt. 3 Upper Canada was thus
' fortunately for itself . . . compelled to establish a system
of local assessments, and to leave local works, in a great
measure, to the energy and means of the localities themselves.' 4

In 1839, in consequence of the construction of canals and
other public works, the Province of Upper Canada had in
curred a debt of upwards of one million pounds. The total
revenue of the province was barely sufficient to meet the
interest charge upon this debt. Since an increase in the
customs duties chargeable at the port of entry would have

1 Upon the question of control there was a prolonged controversy. The point
of view of Downing Street is to be found in a dispatch dated July 17, 1835
(reprinted as an appendix in A Despatch from . . . Lord Glenelg, H:M. Secretary
of State for the Colonies to H.E. Sir Francis Bond Head, Lieut.-Gov. of U. C.,
Toronto, 1836, p. 32), and the point of view of the executive council of U. C.
is to be found in the Report of a Select Committee cited above. The home
government feared that if full financial control were given to the assembly, the
independence of the judiciary would be compromised. On the other hand, the
critics of the home government and of the executive council argued that there
were too many functionaries, that their salaries were excessive, and that the
patronage enjoyed by the home government and by the executive council was
abused (cf., e.g., G. R. Young, Letters on Responsible Government and an Union of
the Colonies . . . to . . . Lord Russell, Halifax, 1840, p. 5, and The Seventh Report
from the Select Committee of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada on Grievances,
Toronto, 1835, passim).

2 Report on the Affairs of British North America from the Earl of Durham,
H.M. High Commissioner, etc. etc., ordered to be printed February n, 1839
(London, 1839), fo. 33.

3 Under 9 Geo. iv, cap. 13 (1828) the province borrowed from the British
government 100,000 at 4! per cent in order to redeem debentures which had been
issued at 6 per cent.

* Report on the Affairs of British North America, etc., fo. 55.

246 FINANCE AND TAXATION

benefited Upper Canada only to the extent of two-fifths of
that increase, while it would have endowed Lower Canada
with funds which were not required for the public service, it
was evident that either the proportion of the distribution of
the yield of the duties must be altered or some other method
of raising a revenue must be devised. The first expedient
seemed to be impracticable, and Lord Durham therefore con
sidered that recourse must be had to direct taxation. Under
the then economic conditions of the country the only form
of direct taxation which seemed likely to yield an adequate
revenue was taxation of land. The lands of the crown from
which a revenue might have been derived by way of sale or
lease had already been alienated to the extent of sixteen-
seventeenths of the whole of the surveyed lands. 1 The re
mainder seems to have amounted to little more than one
million acres. Up till 1819 a the revenue derived from the
public lands was received in the form of fees, which were ' no
more than sufficient to compensate the various officers con
cerned in passing the grant, for their trouble.' 3 In 1819 these
fees were doubled, and in 1820 again increased ; but it was
not until 1827, when a commissioner of Crown Lands was
appointed, that any degree of system was even formally in
troduced. Under the instructions of this commissioner 4 all
public land was to be sold by auction, but up till 1839 these
instructions do not appear to have been complied with. 5

The tax upon wild lands in Upper Canada was first
imposed in 1820, or rather it should be said that in that
year measures were first taken to enforce its payment.
A tax of this sort had previously existed ; but as it
was merely a personal charge upon the owner of the
land it could only be recovered in those cases in which

1 Appendix (B) to the Report on the Affairs of British North America (London,
1839), fo. 8. The total area of the province, so far as surveyed, was 17,653,544
acres; the area reserved for roads was 450,000 acres, and for clergy reserves
2,395,687 acres, and there were granted and appropriated 13,660,838 acres. Tho
remainder was 1,147,019 acres.

* From 1791 till 1804 land grants were gratuitous, no fees even being imposed.
Ibid., fo. 9.

3 Ibid., loc. cif.

4 The instructions were drawn up by the Treasury.

5 Appendix (B) cited, fo. 9.

EARLY PROVINCIAL FINANCE 247

the owner resided within the district where the lands
were situated. In 1820 it was made a charge upon the
land, and the sheriff was authorized to sell the land in
the event of the non-payment of the tax for eight years. 1

The tax imposed by the act of 1820 was based upon a
uniform assessment of four shillings per acre for wild land
and twenty shillings per acre for cultivated land, and the
rate of the tax was not to exceed one penny in the pound
upon the valuation. The amount yielded by the tax was
thus insignificant. Owners of wild land were charged only
twenty pence per annum for one hundred acres, and of culti
vated land five times as much. Only those wild lands which
had been actually granted by the crown by patent were sub
ject to the tax. 2 There were, moveover, many explicit ex
emptions. These included the clergy, school and college re
serves, the lands in the possession of the Canada Company,
as well as all lands which may have been sold but for which
patents had not been applied for, and involved about one-
fourth of the ' appropriated but unoccupied land of the pro
vince.' 3 The amount yielded by the tax was expended by
the local magistrates, one-third being devoted to the making
of roads. In the inquiry conducted by Charles Duller, at
the instance of Lord Durham, T. A. Stayner, 4 owner of 50,000
acres of wild land, recommended the imposition of a relatively
high tax upon wild land, and the devotion of the revenue so
derived to an active immigration policy and to the opening
up of good roads. He also recommended the raising of a
loan upon the security of the tax for the purpose of beginning
colonization operations at once. He pointed out that in the
absence of immigration land did not increase in value, and
that therefore the holding of large areas of wild land was
not a profitable proceeding. 5 Charles Duller recommended

1 Appendix (B) cited, fo. 19. The tax was imposed by the provincial govern
ment. A similar tax was imposed by the legislature of Prince Edward Island,
but the act imposing it was disallowed by the home government.

2 In 1839 there were 800,000 acres of wild land granted but not patented, and
upon which no tax was leviable. Evidence of I. Radenhorst, chief clerk in
surveyor-general's office, Q 790 and 791. Appendix (B) cited, fo. 99.

3 Appendix (B) cited, fo. 19.

4 Deputy postmaster-general for British North America.
6 Appendix (B) cited, fo. 65.

248 FINANCE AND TAXATION

that the tax upon wild land should be considerably aug
mented, that provision should be made for the payment of
it in land instead of in money where such form of payment
was desired, and that the clergy, school and college reserves,
as well as all lands in private ownership, whether patented
or not, should be subject to the tax. 1

Neither Lord Durham's idea that direct taxation would
have to be resorted to, nor Charles Buller's suggestion
that the tax upon wild land should be increased, met with
any enthusiasm on the part either of the legislature or the
people of Upper Canada when the union of the provinces
took place in 1840. Direct taxation was probably, under
the then circumstances of the country, quite impracticable.
There was little circulation of ready money and the cash
incomes of the people were slender. 2

The Act of Union of 1840 placed both Upper and Lower
Canada, now Ontario and Quebec, on a fresh political and
financial basis. During the period from 1840 until the con
federation of the provinces in 1867 the chief part of the
revenue of the Province of Canada (consisting of Ontario
and Quebec) was derived from customs duties. The yield of
these duties composed about four-fifths of the total revenue.
During the first ten years of the Union the revenues fluctuated
greatly, but from 1849 onwards they exhibited an almost
continuous increase. The public debt also increased ; for
example, in 1842 the debt was under ^80,000, in 1852 it
was nearly ^25O,ooo. 3 Up till 1846 the Province of Canada
did not enjoy fiscal freedom. Under the British Possessions
Acts of 1833 and 1845 4 the duties leviable by the British
North American colonies were fixed by imperial parliament.
In 1846 an act was passed 5 which gave the colonies power
to repeal the duties as specified in the previously mentioned

1 Appendix (B) cited, fo. 21.

2 Cf. Sir A. T. Gait (previously Finance minister of Canada) in address in
Manchester Town Hall to the Chamber of Commerce, September 25, 1862 (London,
1862). Reprinted in The Relations of the Industry of Canada with the Mother
Country (Montreal, 1864), p. 354.

3 Cf. the Hon. Wm. Cayley, Finances and Trade of Canada at the Beginning
of 1855 (London, 1855), and Canada Directory, 1857-58 (Montreal, 1857), p. 1012.

4 3 and 4 Will, iv, cap. 39, and 8 and 9 Viet. cap. 9.
6 9 and 10 Viet. cap. 94.

EARLY PROVINCIAL FINANCE 249

acts. This measure was a logical consequence of the adoption
of a policy of free trade by Great Britain and of the cessation
of the system of colonial preferences. 1

These changes were vehemently opposed in Canada, by
the Boards of Trade of Quebec, Montreal and Toronto, and
energetically by Isaac Buchanan, M.P. 2 The movement for
reciprocal trade relations between Canada and the United
States was a natural result of the free trade movement in
England and of the contingent changes in the fiscal position
of Canada. 3 So also was the movement in favour of a
national policy, which was initiated at the same time. 4

The movement for reciprocity with the United States
which began in 1846 was successfully concluded with the
Elgin-Marcy Treaty, which was effective between 1854 and
1866. The immediate effect of this treaty in a financial
sense was a slight falling off of revenue. 5 The treaty did not
apply to manufactured goods, and during its currency the
Canadian duties upon certain goods customarily imported
from the United States were gradually increased. Notwith
standing these increases, the costs of interior improvement
and of the administration of the country were so great that,
in the period immediately before Confederation, the finances
of the Province of Canada were not in a favourable position.
This was all the more unfortunate in that the government

1 The preferences on Canadian timber were established in 1806 and were with
drawn gradually ; those on grain began in 1828 and ended abruptly in 1846.

2 In a letter to the Times, February 6, 1846 (cf. E. Porritt, Sixty Years of
Protection in Canada, London, 1908, p. 44), and retrospectively in a speech at
Toronto, December 17, 1863, in The Relations of the Industry of Canada with the
Mother Country and the United States (Montreal, 1 864) , p. 1 7 et seq.

3 This movement began even while Sir Robert Peel's measures were still in
the committee stage of the House of Commons (cf. Porritt, op. cit., p. 66).

4 Although Buchanan advocated protection, he was nevertheless in favour of
an American zollverein (cf. speech at Toronto, loc. cit., p. 19). A national policy
began to be talked about in 1845 (see Mirror of Parliament, March 3, 1845).
An early elaboration of it is to be found in a lecture delivered by Mr Justice
Sullivan at Hamilton, Ont., on November 17, 1847, On the Connection between the
Agriculture and Manufactures of Canada (Hamilton, 1848).

5 The contingent advantages to the Province of Canada of the reciprocity
treaty of 1854-66 do not fall to be considered here. A criticism of the action of
the Canadian government during the currency of the treaty will be found in
' Report on Reciprocity to the Secretary of the Treasury,' by the Hon. Israel T.
Hatch, Executive Documents, H. of R., 1859-60, No. 96.

250 FINANCE AND TAXATION

was obliged to borrow in an adverse money market in 1865,
and in a highly perturbed money market in I866. 1 The
securities of the province were depreciated and the govern
ment was obliged to borrow at a rate two per cent above the
discount rate of the Bank of England at the time.

II
PROVINCIAL FINANCE SINCE CONFEDERATION

THE British North America Act (1867) 2 gave the Dom
inion parliament exclusive powers to levy customs
and excise duties, and thus deprived the provinces of
power to raise a revenue by means of such duties. In order
to compensate the provinces their debts were assumed by the
Dominion, and in order to afford them a revenue they were
granted annual subsidies payable out of the consolidated
revenues of the Dominion. 3

Under the British North America Act all canals, railways,
harbours, steamboats, custom-houses and the like 4 were trans
ferred to the Dominion, and all lands, minerals, and royalties
belonging to the provinces were reserved to them. 5 While
the Dominion parliament was endowed with the power to
raise ' money by any mode or system of taxation,' 6 the pro
vinces were entitled ' exclusively to make laws in relation,'
inter alia, to ' direct taxation within the province in order
to the raising of a revenue for provincial purposes.' 7

The phrase ' direct taxation ' has given rise to litigation. 8

1 For correspondence on this point between Sir A. T. Gait and Messrs Baring
Bros, and Glyn, Mills, Currio and Co., see Sessional Paper No. 35, Sessional Papers,
vol. xxvi., 1866.

8 30 Viet. cap. 3.

8 These grants varied in amount. Ontario received under the act $80,000 a
year for the support of the provincial government, and in addition 80 cents per
year per head of the population as ascertained at the decennial census. The
public debt of Ontario assumed by the Dominion in 1867 amounted to 162,500,000 ;
the total debt of Ontario eventually assumed amounted to $78,400,000.

4 Under Schedule in of the British North America Act.

6 A number of funds and trust funds were reserved to Ontario and Quebec
conjointly. For list see Schedule iv, British North America Act.

6 Ibid., sect. 91.3. 7 Ibid., sect. 92.2.

B See Lefroy, The Law of Legislative Power in Canada (Toronto, 1897-98),

FINANCE SINCE CONFEDERATION 251

The principle has, however, been settled by a Privy Council
decision to the effect that the raising of a revenue for pro
vincial purposes by direct taxation within the province lies
within the powers of the provincial legislature. 1 It was also
decided by the same tribunal that this power might be dele
gated ' to any local jurisdiction within the province.' *

Up till the year 1892 the provincial revenues of Ontario,
apart from the subsidy from the Dominion exchequer, were
derived from the sales of rights to cut timber upon provin
cial lands, from mineral royalties, and from fees and licences.
No direct taxation was imposed. The revenues from the
sources mentioned sufficed for the public service. In the
year 1892, however, it became apparent that owing to the
increase of provincial expenditure, especially upon educa
tion, additional sources of revenue must be tapped. The
first step in a new policy was taken in respect to inheritance
taxes. An act was passed in 1892 instituting succession
duties. 3 It was feared that the imposition of such duties
might diminish the amount of bequests to charitable institu
tions, and it was agreed that the proceeds of the succession
duties should be applied partly towards the maintenance
of insane asylums and other charitable institutions under
the control of the provincial government, and towards grants
to charitable institutions under the control of voluntary
associations. Under the act of 1892 succession duties were
exigible only upon amounts exceeding $100,000 when the
beneficiary was directly related to the testator, and upon
amounts exceeding $10,000 when the beneficiaries were of
distant kin or strangers. Bequests of $200 to one person
were exempted, as also were bequests to religious, charitable,
or educational institutions. Direct heirs were called upon to
pay two and a half per cent when the amount of their bequests
exceeded $100,000 and did not exceed $200,000, and five per
cent when they exceeded that amount. Collateral kindred

p. 705 et seq. and p. 361 note ; Todd, Parliamentary Government in British Colonies,
2nd ed., p. 564; Dominion Sessional Papers, 1885, No. 85, p. 98; Bank of
Toronto v. Lambe, i M.L.R., p. 122, and i Q.B., p. 129. Other cases are cited by
Lefroy.

1 Bank of Toronto v. Lambe.

1 Dow v. Black. 8 55 Viet. cap. 6.

252 FINANCE AND TAXATION

paid five per cent and strangers ten per cent. Real and per
sonal property were alike liable to succession duty.

Several amending acts having been passed, the most
important being that of I9O5, 1 the laws relating to succes
sion duties were consolidated in IQO/. 2 Under the con
solidated act the limit for direct heirs was reduced to $50,000
and for others to $10,000. Life insurance funds, when in
herited by a direct heir, were exempted to the amount of
$5000 ; the limit of exemption of bequests to one person
was increased from $200 to $300, and only those bequests
to charitable and like institutions within the province were
exempted. The scale of duties is graduated as follows :
between $50,000 and $75,000, one per cent ; between $75,000
and $100,000, two per cent ; between $100,000 and $150,000,
three per cent ; between $150,000 and $200,000, four per cent ;
and above $200,000, five per cent. When the amount be
queathed to one person exceeds $100,000, additional rates are
levied varying from one to five per cent, according to amount.
Five per cent is levied upon remote kindred and ten per cent
upon strangers. One-half of the total receipts from the
succession duties, calculated upon the average of three years,
is ear-marked for the provincial university. 3 The remaining
half is paid into the general revenues of the province.

The increasing charges upon the provincial revenues had
meanwhile rendered it necessary to find other sources of
income. In 1899 an act was passed 4 providing for the
levying of taxes on provincial account upon various classes
of corporations. 5 This act imposed on behalf of the pro
vince a special tax upon banks, loan companies, insurance
companies, railways, telegraph and telephone companies,
and upon gas companies. The taxes are assessable upon a
different basis in each case.

Banks. Under the act of 1899 a tax is imposed (a)

1 5 Edw. vii, cap. 5. 7 Edw. vn, cap. 10.

3 The University of Toronto. 4 62 Viet. cap. 8.

5 In the following sketch of the act use has been made of the writer's paper on
' Canadian Methods of Taxing Corporations ' in State and Local Taxation : Second
International Conference (Columbus, Ohio, 1909), pp. 588-615, and of his ' Taxation
of Corporations in Ontario ' in Journal of the Canadian Bankers' Association,
vol. vii. p. 333.

FINANCE SINCE CONFEDERATION 253

upon the capital stock of the bank, whether the head office
is situated within the province or not, and (b) upon each
office or branch of the bank within the province. The
amount of the tax is one-tenth of one per cent on the paid-up
capital, when the capital is $2,000,000 or less, and one-
fortieth of one percent, or $25 per $100,000, for each $100,000
or fraction of this amount in excess of $2,000,000 up to
$6,000,000. Every bank pays an additional tax of $100 for
each principal place of business, and $25 for each city, town,
or village in which a branch is maintained, the tax being
levied upon one branch only in each place. There is a pro
viso to the effect that the lieutenant-governor in council
may reduce the amount of the tax upon any bank whose
head office is not in Ontario, provided the business done by
the bank is small. An amending act passed in I9O6 1 re
quires the banks to pay the tax upon each agency. A
further amending act passed in 1908 2 provides that when
the bank employs only a portion of its capital in Ontario,
and has not more than five agencies in Ontario, the amount
of the tax may be reduced by the lieutenant-governor in
council ; but the tax shall not be less than one-tenth of one
per cent of half the paid-up capital.

By way of criticism of this form of taxation, it may be
observed that while there is no doubt as to the power of the
provinces to tax banks even although these are all chartered
by the Dominion, it is questionable whether there is any
justification for taxing upon the whole of the paid-up capital,
whether the whole of this capital is employed in the pro
vince or not. If all of the nine provinces imposed taxes upon
a similar basis, the whole of the capital of the banks would
be taxed nine times over. 3

Insurance Companies. Under the Ontario Insurance
Act insurance companies carrying on business in Ontario
were required to contribute to the provincial revenues an
aggregate sum of $3000 per annum. This amount was to

1 6 Edw. vii, cap. 9, sect. i. * 8 Edw. vn, cap. 14, sect. 4.

3 Opinions vary as to the expediency of this form of double taxation. Pro
fessor Seligman is, I believe, opposed to it, while Professor Westlake approves
of it. The question is fully discussed in the writer's two papers above mentioned.

254 FINANCE AND TAXATION

be levied upon the licensed companies by contributions pro
rata according to the gross amount at risk on December 31
in each year. Under the act of 1899* 'every insurance
company which transacts business in the Province of Ontario
shall pay a tax of one per cent, and every other insurance
company, a tax of two-thirds of one per cent of the gross
premiums received by the company during the preceding
year.' Where a foreign company receives in gross premiums
less than $20,000 a year, and where such company lends
money or where it has invested in the province $100,000 or
more, a tax of one per cent is levied on the gross premiums,
and of one-quarter of one per cent upon the income from
investments. Deduction is permitted on account of re
insurance, and the amount due under the Insurance Act is
deducted from the amount of the tax payable by the com
pany. In an amending act of igoo 2 the inferior limit of
$100,000 is cancelled.

Loan Companies. Under the act of 1899, (a) companies
with fixed or permanent paid-up capital pay $65 per $100,000
or fraction thereof, (b) Companies having only terminating
or withdrawable capital pay upon the amount of such capital
at the same rate, but only if the capital exceeds $100,000.
(c) Companies whose headquarters are in Great Britain pay
only upon that part of their funds which may be employed
in Canada (not merely in Ontario).

An amending clause in the act of 1900 * provided that in
the case of group (6) in above list, 65 cents per $1000 must
be paid where the terminable or withdrawable capital exceeds
$100,000. The same amending act restricts the tax on
members of group (c) to funds employed in Ontario only,
and extends the provision to companies having their head
offices in Canada, elsewhere than in the Province of Ontario,
the determination of the status of any company being left
to the discretion of the lieutenant-governor in council.

Trust Companies. Every trust company which transacts
business in the Province of Ontario is required to pay a tax
of $250 where the capital is $100,000 or less, and $65 for
each additional $100,000 or fraction of this sum. Where

1 62 Viet. cap. 8. * 63 Viet. cap. 6. * 63 Viet. cap. 6, cl. 4.

FINANCE SINCE CONFEDERATION 255

the gross profits of the company are $25,000 per annum, the
company pays a further sum of $500 per annum, interest
on its paid-up capital being deducted from its gross profits.

Railways. Under the act of 1899 every railway was
required to pay a tax of $5 per mile for mileage within the
province, the measurement excluding switches and disregard
ing double track. Electric railways were exempted. An
amending clause in the act of 1900 * provided that in case of
a railway line being used by more than one company, the total
tax should not exceed $5 per mile of line. Under a further
amending act of 1908 2 every company owning, operating,
or using a railway is required to pay a tax of $60 per mile
for one track, and $20 per mile for each additional track in
any organized county ; and $40 and $10 respectively for
lines built in unorganized counties. If, however, the line is
not more than 150 miles in length, the tax is $15 per mile
and $5 per mile respectively ; and where the line is not more
than 30 miles in length, $10 and $5 per mile respectively.

Street Railways. These are also taxed upon the principle
of mileage. The rate is $20 per mile for a track not exceed
ing 20 miles ; $35 per mile when the track exceeds 20 miles
but does not exceed 30 miles ; $45 per mile when the track
exceeds 30 miles but does not exceed 50 miles ; and $60 per
mile when the track exceeds 50 miles. Double track counts as
two miles. These provisions are confirmed in the act of 1908.

It may be observed that while the mileage principle has
the advantage of simplicity, the tax imposed under it does
not vary with the earning power of the line.

Telegraph Companies. The owners of a telegraph line
within the province are each jointly and severally liable for
a tax of one-tenth of one per cent upon their paid-up capital.

Telephone Companies. These pay one-eighth of one per
cent upon their paid-up capital.

Gas and Electric Lighting Companies. Such companies
pay one-tenth of one per cent upon their paid-up capital.
Municipal plants are exempted.

1 63 Viet. cap. 6.

z Following the Report of -the Ontario Commission on Railway Taxation,

1905.

256 FINANCE AND TAXATION

Express Companies. These pay a tax of $800 for the
first 400 miles over which they operate, and an additional
$125 for every 400 miles or fraction of this distance.

Sleeping, and Parlour Car Companies. These pay a tax of
one-third of one per cent upon the capital invested in rolling
stock used in the province during the preceding year.

The net result of the legislation above described is that
a revenue of about $700,000 a year is derived from the
sources enumerated. More than one-half of this amount
is contributed by railway companies, rather less than ten
per cent by banks, rather more than five per cent by life
insurance companies, about four per cent by fire insurance
companies, about four per cent by loan companies, about
one per cent by trust companies, one and one-half per cent
by gas and electric lighting companies, and one and one-
quarter per cent by street railway companies.

The method of levying the corporation tax is so diversified
that it is quite impossible to arrive at any conclusion regard
ing the fairness or otherwise of the distribution of the tax.
It will be noticed that there has been a tendency to increase
the rate of taxation. This tendency has exhibited itself
chiefly in the case of railways and in that of banks.

Taxes upon Mines. Up till 1906 taxation upon mines
assumed the form of mining royalties payable to the province.
Under an act of 6 Edw. vii these royalties were abolished.
An act of 1907 l substituted for them a new mine tax. Every
mine in the province, the annual profits of which exceed
$10,000, pays a tax of three per cent upon the excess of
profits above $10,000. The profits are estimated by deduct
ing from the gross receipts the cost of transportation, working
expenses, cost of light and power, food and provisions, explo
sives, fuel, etc., insurance, depreciation of plant, and work done
in sinking new shafts. No deduction is made for interest or
dividends paid, nor for cost of plant, nor for depreciation in
the value of the mine. Holders of mining rights also pay
two cents per acre. Natural gas companies pay a tax of two
cents per 1000 feet of gas sold or used. The tax is remitted
upon natural gas used in the smelting of iron ore in Canada.

1 7 Edw. vn, cap. 9.

FINANCE SINCE CONFEDERATION 257

Provincial Debt. The direct liabilities of the Province
of Ontario on October 31, 1909, the most recent date for
which statistics are available, amounted to $20,668,000. Of
this amount $9,830,000, or 2,020,000 at par of exchange, was
raised in London upon Ontario government inscribed stock. 1
The sum of 1,200,000 2 of this total bears interest at the rate
of three and one-half per cent, and 820,000 3 at the rate of
four per cent. The remaining obligations are in the forms
of Ontario government bonds and stock issued in Canada
($3,000,000 4 at three and one-half per cent and $3,220,000 5
at four per cent), and of railway and annuity certificates
($4,091,400) and other miscellaneous items. The indirect
liabilities of the province, including the liabilities in respect
to guarantees, amount to $9,060,000. Included in this
amount is the guaranteed debenture stock of the Canadian
Northern Railway, amounting to 1,615,068 at three and one-
half per cent. This guarantee is secured by a first mortgage
upon the line, rolling stock, and terminals. The greater
part of the direct obligation of the province has been incurred
on account of the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Rail
way, the capital account of which stands at $I5,338,339- 6
The government of the province is responsible for a small
amount ($14,000) of municipal sinking fund moneys deposited
with it by a few small municipalities.

Revenues. The revenues of the province amounted in
1909 to $7,478,000, of which a sum of $2,129,000 was paid
in respect to the subsidy on population and in respect to a
special grant by the Dominion treasury ; a sum of about
$2,000,000 w r as received from land, forests, and mines,
$618,000 from the succession duties, $720,000 from taxes
upon corporations, $353,000 from licences, and $550,000
from the earnings of the Timiskaming Railway. 7

1 Under 5 Edw. vn, cap. 2 and 3, and 8 Edw. vn, cap. n and 12.

2 Principal repayable January i, 1946.

3 Principal repayable May i, 1947.

4 Principal repayable July i, 1926.

5 Principal repayable June i, 1939.

6 Sessional Papers, vol. xlii. part i., 1910, p. 255.

7 A sum not quite equal to three per cent upon the capital invested in the
railway by the province. In 1909 the railway had been in operation for only
three years.

VOL. XVII R

258 FINANCE AND TAXATION

Expenditures. The expenditures of the province amounted
in the year 1909 to $7,545,000, of which nearly $4,000,000*
represented the expenditure for education, over $1,000,000
for the maintenance of public institutions, about $350,000
for contributions to hospitals and charities under boards
independent of the government, and about half a million
each for civil government, administration of justice, agricul
ture, colonization roads, and charges upon crown lands. Re
ceipts from interest upon investments and floating balances
nearly met the expenditure upon interest account. At the
beginning of the year 1909 the government held balances
deposited in the banks to the amount of $3,000,000, and at
the end of the year to the amount of $5,000,000, the increase
being due to unexhausted funds from loans contracted during
the year.

Ill

EARLY MUNICIPAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

THE history of the Upper Canada municipalities begins
with two acts of the provincial legislature the legis
lative council and assembly of the Province of Upper
Canada. These acts were passed on the same day, viz. July 9,
J 793- 2 The first act provided for the nomination and
appointment of parish officers within the province. Among
these officers there were to be assessors and collectors of
rates and taxes. The second act was entitled ' An Act to
authorize and direct the laying and collecting of assessments
and rates in every district within this province, and to pro
vide for the payment of wages to the members of the house
of assembly.' It is interesting to notice that the scheme
of assessment which was adopted was a graduated one.
Householders whose total property, real and personal, was
valued at 50 to 100 paid 2s. 6d., 100 to 150, 53. 6d., and
with intermediate groups, those worth 400 or more paid 20s.

1 Of this amount the University of Toronto received about $500,000.

2 33 Geo. in, cap. 2 and cap. 3. The latter act (cap. 3) was amended by 34
Geo. in, cap. 6 (1794) and by 43 Geo. in, cap. n and 12 (1803), and repealed by 47
Geo. in, cap. 7(1807).

EARLY MUNICIPAL FINANCE AND TAXATION 259

The wages of members of the house of assembly were raised
and paid in each constituency by the justices of the peace. 1
An act was passed in 1803 z particularizing ' the property
real and personal which during the continuance thereof shall
be subject to assessments and rates and fixing the several
valuations at which each and every particular of such pro
perty shall be rated and assessed.' An act with an almost
similar title was passed in iSoy. 3 Several acts relating to
the performance of statute labour in specified counties had
been passed prior to 1810 : in that year a general act 4 abolished
statute labour in part and substituted payments. In 1811 5
lands used for agricultural purposes and animals were for
the first time subjected to assessment and taxation. Arable
and meadow land was assessed at a value of 2Os. per acre.
Uncultivated or wild land was valued at 43. Stallions
when used for gain were valued at 199, horses of three
years and over at 4, and milch cows at 3. The pro
visions of this act were continued by an act of i8i5. 6 In
1819 there appeared the first extensive and important
local assessment act, 7 repealing the former acts and levy
ing taxes upon lands, houses, and other forms of property.
The valuations of arable, pasture, and meadow land and
of uncultivated land were to be the same as in the previous
acts, viz. 2Os. and 43. respectively. Town lots in York,
Kingston, Niagara, and Queenston were to be valued at
^50 each, and in Sandwich, Johnston, and Belleville at
25 each. Houses built of timber squared on two sides,
of one storey only and with not more than two fireplaces, were
to be valued at 20, with 4 for every additional fireplace ;
frame houses were valued at 35 and brick or stone houses
at 40, with 8 and 10 respectively for every additional
fireplace. Two-storey houses of timber were valued at ^30,
and of frame, brick, or stone at 60, with 8 and 10 respec
tively for every additional fireplace over two. Grist-mills with
one pair of stones were valued at 150, with 50 for every

1 The wages were to be ten shillings per day.

2 43 Geo. in, cap. 12 (1803).

3 47 Geo. in, cap. 7 (1807), repealed by 51 Geo. in, cap. 8 (1811).

4 50 Geo. in, cap. i (1810). s 51 Geo. m, cap. 8 (1811).
6 55 Geo. in, cap. 5 (1815). 7 59 Geo. in, cap. 7 (1819).

260 FINANCE AND TAXATION

additional pair, saw-mills at 100, and merchants' shops at
200. Stallions were valued as formerly, so also were milch
cows, but the value of horses was increased to 8. A close
carriage for pleasure was valued at 100, a phaeton at 25,
and a gig at 20.

The net result of these assessments was that a house
holder possessing such a house as ' The Grange ' in Toronto,
which was built in 1818, would pay 1 for his house, with addi
tional fireplaces, together with his land, a close carriage, a
pair of horses and a milch cow, all of which he doubtless
possessed, a total tax of i, os. Qd., or about $5. The differ
ence in the value of money between then and now would of
course have to be taken into account in making any com
parison with the taxes of our own day. Even when this is
done, it must be allowed that the tax was not excessive.
Crown and clergy reserve lands leased to individuals were
subject to the tax, which was to be at the rate of one penny
in the pound. Assessors were to receive four per cent, col
lectors five per cent, and the treasurer four per cent of the
collections. Other functionaries were also to be paid by
fees. Arrears were to be allowed to run for three years.

In 1825 2 the provisions of the above-mentioned act were
continued, excepting that arrears might run for eight years
from July I, 1828. There was also a new provision to the
effect that owners of unsurveyed land must report by schedule
on penalty of double rates, one-half to go to the informer. 3

Although the general assessment acts applied to all
municipalities, between 1830 and 1840 special charters were
granted to some of the larger towns. For example, in 1834*
the town of York received incorporation as the city of
Toronto. It became entitled to borrow a sum equal to five
years' taxes, but not more, unless with the authorization of
an act of parliament.

The union of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada

1 Provided it were built in a town lot. As a matter of fact ' The Grange '
v/as built in a park lot.

1 Assented to April 4, 1825. Printed at the end of the statutes of the year
without chapter number. See Nickall's Statutes of the Province of Upper Canada,
(Kingston, U.C., 1831), p. 396.

3 Cl. 4. 4 Under 4 Will, iv, cap. 23 (1834).

EARLY MUNICIPAL FINANCE AND TAXATION 261

in 1840 led to a reorganization of the municipal system and
to the erection of district councils for the management of
local affairs. This reorganization was effected by an act
in 1 84 1. 1 The district councils were required to appoint
treasurers, auditors, and surveyors, and they were empowered
to assess and levy taxes ; but they were not permitted to
levy taxes upon crown property, nor to assess any property
excepting what was liable to assessment prior to the act.
Taxes were directed to be equally assessed on all property
liable to assessment, and the previously existing rates were
to continue in force until the district council otherwise
decided. Wild lands might be taxed for district purposes,
but to an amount not exceeding one penny and a half per
acre per year. The previously existing liabilities of the
districts were to be assumed by the new district councils.
The councils were forbidden to issue notes or to act as
bankers.

In i849 2 the territorial division of the province into
districts was abolished and the temporary union of counties
for judicial and other purposes was provided for, together
with the means for the future dissolution of these unions
as wealth and population increased. In the same year the
municipal system was revised as a whole. 3

In 1850 a new assessment act was passed. 4 The new
feature of this act was the assessment in respect to annual
value of real and personal property alike. This annual
value was to amount to six per cent upon the assessed total
value in the case of personal property, and in the case of land,
buildings, etc., it was to be a rack-rent. Annual value as
a basis of taxation disappeared in the next act passed three
years later. The assessment laws of Upper Canada were
consolidated in i853, 5 following upon the Municipal Acts
Amendment Act of the same year. 6 Under this act all land
and personal property was liable to taxation. The expres
sion ' land ' was denned to include buildings and machinery,

1 4 and 5 Viet. cap. 10 (1841). * Under 12 Viet. cap. 78 (1849).

3 Under 12 Viet. cap. 80 and 81 (1849). * 13 and 14 Viet. cap. 67 (1850).

5 16 Viet. cap. 182 (1853).

6 1 6 Viet. cap. 181. See also 16 Viet. cap. 163 (1853).

262 FINANCE AND TAXATION

when so fixed to the buildings as to form in law part of the
realty, trees, mines, minerals, quarries and fossils, excepting
those lands, buildings, etc., belonging to the crown. Personal
property was defined as including all goods, chattels, shares,
money, notes, accounts, and debts at their full value, ' and all
other property excepting land.' The personal property was
to be assessed in the following manner. If it amounted to
25 and less than 50, it was to be assessed as if it were 25
only, if of 50 and less than 100, at 50 only, if of 1000
and not more than 2500, at 1000 only, if of 15,000 and
less than 20,000, at 15,000 only, and at intermediate points
on a varying principle. No person enjoying an income from
any calling exceeding 50 was to be assessed for less than
that amount as the amount of his personal property. The
exemptions included public buildings, certain official salaries,
public pensions below 50, incomes from farms, crops of the
current year, mortgaged property, bank and railway stocks,
debts, household effects, books, etc. It will be noticed that
incomes as such are not assessed. Although previous acts
had provided for the taxation of personal property, the act
of 1853 is the first act of Upper Canada which really provides
for the imposition of a general property tax. It exempted,
however, from taxation certain forms of property for example,
household effects which are sometimes included in general
property taxes.

The principle of this act continued to be recognized in
subsequent Ontario acts.

The rapid growth of the province at this time, and the
anxiety of the municipalities to keep down the rate of taxa
tion, together with the need for public improvements, especi
ally in the ways of communication, led the municipalities to
borrow for improvements rather than to increase the current
load. There was at that time no organized money market
in the country, there were few banks, and the accumulated
means of the people were small. The municipalities had no
extended credit. Under these circumstances the provincial
government came to their assistance and established a system
by which funds might be lent to the municipalities by or
through the government. The operations of the Municipal

EARLY MUNICIPAL FINANCE AND TAXATION 263

Loan Fund have not hitherto been described in detail, and
therefore it seems expedient to devote some space to a de
scription of them.

THE MUNICIPAL LOAN FUND, 1852-73

Under an act of the Province of Canada passed in 1852 l
there were created two Municipal Loan Funds, one for
Upper and one for Lower Canada. The funds were to be
raised and managed by the provincial government, and loans
from the funds were to be given to municipalities for the
purpose of building and improving gaols and court-houses,
and for constructing or completing railroads, canals, or
harbours within or without the borrowing municipality.
The period of the local loans was to be not less than five
nor more than thirty years. In the case of counties the
principal and interest were to be apportioned, according to
the assessed property, by the county treasurer upon the
townships, towns, and villages in the borrowing county.
After approval by a majority of the qualified electors by vote
at a general meeting or at a poll on the demand of at least
six electors, the application for the loan was to be submitted
to the governor in council for approval. The rate of interest
was not to exceed six per cent. Debentures were to be issued
(of denominations of not less than 25 each) bearing upon
their face the undertaking of the provincial government as
regards principal and interest, payment to be made out of
the Consolidated Municipal Loan Fund. Such debentures
being issued by the government might be used for banking
reserves in the same way as other government securities. The
interest and principal of the individual loans were to be
estimated by the treasurers of the municipalities concerned,
and the amount was to be levied by the clerk of the muni
cipality upon the taxable property within the area. Any
accrued surplus was to be carried over to the following year,
and any deficiency was to be collected by a special rate.

1 16 Viet. cap. 22. The writer is indebted to Mr A. Pardoe, Librarian of the
Legislative Library of Ontario, for his kindness in directing him to sources upon
this subject. So far as the writer is aware, the data have not previously been
summarized.

264 FINANCE AND TAXATION

Should the local authorities fail to levy and collect the tax,
the governor in council might by warrant oblige the sheriff
to do so. Any municipality which had borrowed from the
Municipal Loan Fund was forbidden to contract further
debt without the consent of the governor in council. Under
the act of 1852 no limit was placed either upon the borrow
ing powers of the municipalities or upon the amount which
might be placed at the credit of the Municipal Loan Fund. 1
The municipalities began to avail themselves of the facilities
for borrowing immediately. In 1853, the first year of the
operation of the act, twenty-six municipal bodies borrowed
from the fund. 2

Most of the loans were made to municipalities for the
purpose of making grants to, or of subscribing for, the
stock of railways. Up till 1871 a large part of the amount
invested in railways by the municipalities had been lost.
Only a fraction of the total amount borrowed was ex
pended in local improvements. 3 A weak central authority 4
and optimistic local authorities together brought the whole
scheme of consolidated municipal loans to ruin. At the end
of 1854 the Municipal Loan Fund was limited to 1,500,000
together with the related sinking funds, and the amount
which a municipality might borrow was limited to twenty
per cent upon the aggregate valuation of property within its
borders. 5 In May 1859 the process of granting loans from
the fund was arrested. 6 It became evident that neither the

1 The following is a complete list of the acts of the Ontario legislature con
cerning this subject : 16 Viet. cap. 22 (1852) ; 16 Viet. cap. 123 (1853) ; 18 Viet.
cap. 13 (1854) ; 20 Viet. cap. 20 (1857) ; 20 Viet. cap. 42 (1857) ; 22 Viet. cap. 15
(1859) ; 36 Viet. cap. 47 (1873) ; 38 Viet. cap. 29 (1874) ; 40 Viet. cap. 13 (1877) ;
42 Viet. cap. 9 (1879) ; 45 Viet. cap. 27 (1882) ; 48 Viet. cap. 7 (1885). See also
the Municipal Act, R.S.O., cap. 184, cl. 381.

2 Calculated from Report on the Municipal Loan Fund, Province of Ontario,
prepared by the Hon. E. B. Wood (Toronto, 1871), Sessional Papers (No. 8), 35
Viet. (1871-72).

3 Calculated from Report by E. B. Wood, cited.

4 The reasons for the relative strength of the local authorities are discussed in
Municipal Government in Ontario, by Adam Shortt, in University of Toronto
Studies History and Economics, vol. ii. No. 2 (Toronto, 1903). See also The
Ontario Township, by J. M. M c Evoy (Toronto, 1889), especially p. 20, and the
Introduction to the same by Prof. W. J. Ashley.

6 18 Viet. cap. 13 (1854). 6 22 Viet. cap. 15 (1859).

EARLY MUNICIPAL FINANCE AND TAXATION 265

growth of the population nor the course of development
of agriculture or of industry justified the local authorities
in availing themselves of the facilities to borrow money
which the government had afforded them. The act of 1859
made a drastic change in the financial relations of the muni
cipalities and the government. The Municipal Loan Fund
debentures which had been issued with the guarantee of
the government were taken up and cancelled, five per cent
provincial bonds being exchanged for them at par. The
government charged the municipalities only the five per cent
which it paid plus two per cent for a sinking fund. The muni
cipalities were required to levy a tax of five per cent upon the
yearly value or upon six per cent of the capital value of taxable
property, and the debt to the province as the payments
accrued was to be met before any other ' sum whatever ' was
paid out of the funds of the municipality. The treasurer
or corresponding officer of the municipality who did not act
in accordance with this provision was to be deemed guilty
of a misdemeanour and was to be held liable personally for
the amount concerned. The provincial receiver-general was
also empowered to retain in his hands any sums due to any
municipality which might be indebted to the Loan Fund
until the claims of that fund were satisfied.

A fresh complication also arose in the year 1859. Funds
arising from the sale of the clergy reserves were distributed
among the municipalities for local purposes, and to this end
such funds were placed in a Municipalities Fund. Up till the
end of 1859 the sum of $2,600,000 had been distributed from
this fund among the municipalities or credited to them,
whether they were indebted to and in default to the Muni
cipal Loan Fund or not. In consequence of the legislation of
1859, quoted above, the municipalities in default to the Loan
Fund were not paid their shares of the clergy reserve moneys.
Such moneys had formerly been transferred to the credit of
the Loan Fund and employed in extinguishing the liabilities
of the defaulting municipalities and of the government on
their account. Instead of this course being pursued, the funds
were left at the credit of the Municipalities Fund, and eventu
ally paid over pro rata to the non-borrowing or non-defaulting

266 FINANCE AND TAXATION

municipalities. 1 In 1871 the arrears of principal and interest
in connection with the Municipal Loan Fund amounted to
$5,008,000.

It is not surprising to find that, in the confusion in which
municipal finance was plunged at this period, funds raised for
one purpose were diverted to other purposes. Thus in 1858
Grammar and Common School Funds were expended on public
improvements. 2 Even the provincial government, when it
found itself in straits, was driven to propose diversions of a
similar kind.

In 1872 there were some twenty-six municipalities which
were not only in default as regards principal and interest
of loans from the Municipal Loan Fund, but which were
almost wholly oblivious of their obligations to the province.
The clauses in the act of 1859 which obliged them to levy
taxes for the purpose of meeting these obligations were
habitually disregarded.

In October 1872 the provincial treasurer began to urge the
recalcitrant municipalities to obey the law, and to threaten to
put the restrictive clauses in force against them and against
their officials personally. 3 This action led to a series of peti
tions and memorials from the defaulting municipalities. 4 In
some cases, as in the case of Fresco tt (town), for example, it
was represented that the population had diminished between
1858 and 1871, that the railway to which the subscription had
been given for which the loan from the province was contracted
had been on the whole detrimental rather than beneficial to
the town, and that the rate authorized and required by the
act of 1859, even if it were levied, would not meet the interest
and sinking fund to the extent of more than one-third of
these. The municipal council therefore asked that the town
be wholly relieved of its liabilities, and in addition that the

The amount so taken up till 1871 was $158,000, and at that date there was
an additional sum of $600,000 available for similar distribution. From those
that had not there was taken away even that which they had.
* Cf. Journals of the Legislature, October 29, 1858.

3 See Return to an Address, etc., January 28, 1873, Sessional Papers (No. 17),
36 Viet. (1873).

4 Supplementary Return, February 3, 1873. Ibid, and Return, February 24,
1873. Ibid.

EARLY MUNICIPAL FINANCE AND TAXATION 267

amount due to it in the Clergy Reserve Fund, and withheld
on account of default in connection with the Municipal Loan
Fund, be paid. Some of the municipalities, as Huron (county} ,
for example, which was not individually in default, demanded
that the government should devise some system of relief for
the poorer defaulters and should not allow the wealthier
defaulters to escape. In one case at least fraudulent repre
sentations on the part of the promoters of railway companies
were alleged.

The facts of the Municipal Loan Fund seem to be that the
municipalities, optimistic as they were about future increase
of population and the speedy development of the country,
allowed themselves to be drawn into the net of railway specu
lation, and their adventures in this direction were facilitated
by the Municipal Loan Fund. Whether or not the pro
vincial government would have been wisely advised to have
given the same subsidies and loans directly to the railways
which were assisted by the municipalities, is open to doubt,
but the province might have done so to the same extent as
the municipalities without compromising its position or credit
as the municipalities did. The reasons for the failure of the
enterprises in which the municipalities embarked more than
five millions of dollars a large sum in proportion to their
resources at the time are partly general and partly special
to the enterprises concerned. Into neither of these is it
necessary in this place to go.

In 1873 the provincial government grappled with the
question. In March of that year an act was passed l under
which a number of struggling and hopelessly indebted muni
cipalities were relieved of the burden of their provincial
loans ; many of the larger municipalities had their burden
reduced, while others remained indebted and some received
grants from the fund. The question of municipal indebted
ness to the province thus came to an end for the time.

1 36 Viet. cap. 47.

268 FINANCE AND TAXATION

IV
RECENT MUNICIPAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

I ""HE sketch of early municipal taxation closed with a
brief account of the Consolidated Assessment Act of
1853. That act was amended in 1860, 1861, and
1863, but we need here concern ourselves only with the Con
solidation Act of I866. 1 It has already been observed that
under the act of 1853 incomes as such are not assessed.
Incomes indeed appear for the first time as assessable pro
perty in the act of 1866. The other items in the schedule
are the same as in the previous act. Exemption from taxa
tion of bank stock is qualified by the phrase ' so long as there
is a special tax on bank issues.' Incomes under $300 are
exempt. Exemptions as in previous acts are continued, as,
for example, educational institutions, churches, etc. etc. Rates
are to be calculated at so much in the dollar upon 'the actual
value of all the real and personal property liable to assess
ment.' The manner of assessing personal property described
in the previous Consolidation Act is continued, the minimum
being raised to $100 and somewhat greater uniformity being
introduced in the graduated scale.

The next consolidation was effected in 1887. The Assess
ment Act of iSSy 2 provided inter alia that all local direct
taxes, unless special provision is made in the act, shall be
equally levied upon the whole ratable property, real and per
sonal, of the locality, according to the assessed value of such
property, and not upon any one or more kinds of property
in particular or in different proportions. The exemptions
included as formerly all public property, churches, cemeteries,
educational institutions, houses occupied by soldiers of any
rank in the regular army in active service and the pay and
pensions of these, grain, live or dead stock in transit, the
incomes of farmers, mortgages upon land, debentures of the
Dominion, of a province or of a municipality, net personal

1 29-30 Viet. cap. 53 (1866).

2 Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1887, cap. 193.

RECENT FINANCE AND TAXATION 269

property under $100 in value, incomes under $700. Incomes
under $1000 were exempted to the extent of $400, and wages
were exempted up to $400 irrespective of total amount,
stipends of clergy up to $1000, parsonages, or, where these are
not provided, dwellings of the clergy up to $2000 in value,
rental of real estate excepting interest on mortgages, house
hold effects, and finally ships were also exempted. The
provisions regarding the method of assessment included the
following : vacant ground or ground used as a farm, garden,
or nursery, and not in immediate demand for building pur
poses, was to be valued at the amount at which ' sales can
be freely made.' Where no such sales could ' reasonably
be expected within the current year,' such land where it
exceeds ten acres must be valued as farm land ' with such
percentage added as the situation of the land reasonably
calls for.' The assessments, as made by the assessors who
were to be appointed by the local authority, were to be
subject to revision by a court of five persons appointed by
the local authority. Appeal from the decisions of the court
of revision was appointed to the judge of the county court.
Equalization of assessments in different municipalities in the
same county was also provided for.

Under the Municipal Act (1887) * the council of every
municipality is required to ' assess and levy on the whole
ratable property within its jurisdiction ' a sum sufficient to
pay the debts of the corporation, but no council is permitted
to assess and levy in any one year more than an aggregate
rate of two per cent on the ' actual value,' exclusive of school
rates. 2 Municipalities were empowered to borrow money pro
vided by-laws to that effect were passed. A by-law was re
quired to recite the amount of the annual sum needed for
the service of the loan, and to provide for this sum being
raised by a special rate. It will be observed that the fixation
of the maximum rate which may be levied under the Assess
ment Act automatically limits the borrowing power of muni-

1 Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1887, cap. 184.

2 Should, however, the two per cent rate be insufficient to meet the current
liabilities of the municipality on account of liabilities incurred prior to 1873, such
rate might be increased, but no further debt could be contracted so long as the
increased rate was exigible. Ibid., sect. 357.

270 FINANCE AND TAXATION

cipalities. An assessment commission was appointed soon
after the revision of the law in 1887, and a report was published
in I888. 1 The law was revised in i897, 2 an d again a com
mission was appointed in 1900. This commission reported
in 1901 3 and 1902,* and a new Assessment Act was passed
in 1 904. Although the question of taxation of land occupied
a large part of the time and attention of the second com
mission owing to the activity of advocates of the single tax,
both commissions were principally concerned with the question
of the continuance of the taxes upon personal property, which
had aroused a considerable amount of opposition, especially
in the larger municipalities. Business houses in Toronto, for
example, threatened to remove to Montreal on the ground
that the method of assessing their stocks of goods made the
burden of taxation unduly heavy. 6 In order to mitigate the
effect of the uniformity of the rate upon all forms of pro
perty, the assessments were in many cases modified in order
to meet the conditions. The inevitable result of this was
great inequality in assessments ; the larger wholesale houses
undoubtedly paid less proportionately than the smaller houses,
and yet to assess them fully was to drive them elsewhere.
The courts of revision were in a cleft stick. The city of Mon
treal had adopted a method of taxation of businesses upon a
rental basis instead of upon the basis of an assessment of their
stock as personal property, 7 and an agitation arose in Ontario
that some similar plan should be adopted. This agitation was
met by the Assessment Act of 1 904.3 For the clause customary
in previous acts providing for the assessment of ' all real and
personal property ' there is substituted a clause which pro
vides that ' where no other express provision is made that
all municipal, local or direct taxes shall be levied upon the
whole of the assessment for real property, income and business
or other assessments made under this Act, according to the

Report of Commission on Municipal Institutions, Toronto, 1888.
Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1897, cap. 224.
Report of Commission on Assessment Laws, Toronto, 1901.
Ibid., 1902. 5 4 Edw. vn, cap. 23.

Cf. S. Vineberg, ' Provincial and Local Taxation in Canada,' Columbia
University Studies (New York, 1912), pp. 39-47.

7 Under 48 Viet. cap. 67, Province of Quebec. 8 4 Edw. vn, cap. 23.

RECENT FINANCE AND TAXATION 271

amounts assessed in respect thereof, and not upon any one
or more kinds of property or assessment or in different pro
portions.' In the new act the exemptions, as provided in
former acts, are continued. The clauses relating to the
business tax are very numerous, different kinds of business
being assessed at a different proportion of the assessed value
of the property occupied by them. For example, distillers
pay on 150 per cent, brewers on 75 per cent ; wholesale mer
chants, insurance companies, trust companies and the like
pay on 75 per cent, manufacturers on 60 per cent, retail
dealers in general on 25 per cent ; barristers, physicians, and
other professional persons on 50 per cent, excepting where the
place of business is also used as a residence, when 25 per cent
only is taken as the assessable value ; departmental stores
dealing in more than five branches of retail business, on 50 per
cent ; telephone, telegraph, street railway companies and
the like pay upon 25 per cent of the assessed value of the
land used by them, in so far as this land is not a highway
or private right of way. The maximum of assessment is
placed at $250. Every person not liable to business assess
ment, or who, being liable, has an income apart from his busi
ness, is assessed in respect to income. In addition to the
business tax, telegraph and telephone companies are assessed
on 60 per cent of the amount of their gross receipts in places
of less than 100,000 inhabitants, and 75 per cent in cities of
over that number. The same companies are also assessed on
a mileage basis.

As regards the assessment of land, excepting in the case
of mineral lands, real property is to be assessed at its actual
value, and all persons liable to business or other taxes are
assessed in respect to the real property occupied by them.
In assessing land upon which buildings are erected, the value
of the land and of the buildings must be ascertained separately,
and must be set down separately in the assessment rolls, and
the assessment is to be the sum of such values. ' The value
of the buildings shall be the amount by which the value of
the land is thereby increased.' x Mineral lands are to be valued
at the value of other lands in the neighbourhood used for

1 Cl. 36, subsection 2.

272 FINANCE AND TAXATION

agricultural purposes ; but the income from any mine or
mineral work is to be subject to taxation in the same manner
as other incomes.

In towns and villages land held in blocks of not less than
five acres which are used as farm lands only are so assessed. 1
There is a provision that lands which are less benefited than
others by local improvements should be exempt or partly
exempt from taxation in respect to these improvements.

Railways are assessed at the actual value of the land
occupied by them. All structures upon the land are assessed
at their ' actual cash value as the same would be appraised
upon a sale to another company having similar powers.'

The courts of revision are the same as under previous
acts. In cities they are to consist of three members, one
appointed by the city council, one by the mayor, and the third
either an official arbitrator appointed for the city, or alter
natively, in certain events, the sheriff of the county. 2 An
appeal lies from the court of revision to the judge of the
county court. 3

A new commission on the assessment law is at present
sitting. Its report is expected to be presented soon. The
agitation against the personal property tax having been met
by the imposition of the business tax, a fresh agitation has
arisen having for its object the increase of assessment upon
land and the diminution of assessment upon buildings or
other improvements. Advocates of the single tax upon land
have thrown their energies into this movement, which has
undoubtedly acquired a great deal of support. In the first
instance, before the various reactions which would inevitably
follow such a change in the assessment law could have time
to bring about a state of equilibrium in which the incidence
of the burdens might be expected to approximate to their
present character, the large class of small householders would
undoubtedly be relatively overweighted. The effect of the
change upon the market for land is probably greatly ex
aggerated. The experience of other places where such a
discrimination in favour of buildings and against land has
1 ci. 39. * a. 57. ' a. 68.

RECENT FINANCE AND TAXATION 273

been exercised, seems to show that land speculation is not
materially checked. The effect might easily be to throw the
land into the hands of large holders, whose resources enable
them to sustain the burden of taxation until the value of land
rises to a sufficient extent to yield them a profit upon their
total investment. The weak holders would undoubtedly
be squeezed out first. It is evident that a tax upon non-
revenue-yielding land is not a land-tax, but is a tax upon
capital. The subject is, however, too intricate for adequate
treatment in this place.

As must have been gathered from the foregoing survey,
the evolution of taxation in Ontario has been from a compara
tively simple system to a highly complex one. Successive
commissions and successive legislatures have yielded to the
pressure of interests and of tax reformers, and have produced
a result bewildering enough from the point of view of
principle. There is nothing new or extraordinary in this.
Some years ago a body of highly competent experts in
taxation were appointed to draw up a scheme for the
Austrian Empire. The result of their deliberations was a
scheme which by no stretching of language could be
described as scientific. It was filled with the strangest
anomalies. It is possible that any similar commission any
where would achieve the same result.

VOL. XVII

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press

"

/

Shortt, Adam

Canada and its provinces

V