QUEDA

¹ Nothing has given rise to greater discontent and heart-burnings than the provision made for the support of the church by means of portions of land set apart for this purpose. The grants of land, as a reward for public services, have likewise been considered as very injurious. This cannot be better explained than in the words of Lord Durham, in his Report on the affairs of British North America.

² The system of clergy reserves was established by the act of 1791, commonly called the Constitutional Act, which directed that, in respect of all grants made by the crown, a quantity equal to one seventh of the land so granted should be reserved for the clergy. A quantity equal to one seventh of all grants would be one eighth of each township, or of all the public land. Instead of this proportion, the practice has been, ever since the act passed, and in the clearest violation of its provisions, to set apart for the clergy in Upper Canada a seventh of all the land, which is a quantity equal to a sixth of the land granted. There have been appropriated for this purpose 300,000 acres, which, legally, it is manifest, belong to the public. And of the amount for which clergy reserves have been sold in that province, namely, L.317,000 (of which about L.160,000 have been already received and invested in the English funds), the sum of about L.45,000 should belong to the public.

³ In Lower Canada the same violation of the law has taken place, with this difference, that upon every sale of crown and clergy reserves, a fresh reserve for the clergy has been made, equal to a fifth of such reserves. The result has been the appropriation for the clergy of 673,567 acres, instead of 446,000, being an excess of 227,569 acres, or half as much again as they ought to have received. The Lower Canada fund already produced by sales amounts to L.59,000, of which, therefore, a third, or about L.16,000, belong to the public. If, without any reform of this abuse, the whole of the unsold clergy reserves in both provinces should fetch the average price at which such lands have hitherto sold, the public would be wronged to the amount of about L.280,000; and the reform of this abuse will produce a certain and almost immediate gain to the public of L.60,000. In referring, for further explanation of this subject, to a paper in the appendix, which has been drawn up by Mr Hanson, a member of the commission of inquiry which I appointed for all the colonies, I am desirous of stating my own conviction that the clergy have had no part in this great misappropriation of the public property, but that it has arisen entirely from heedless misconception, or some other error, of the civil government of both provinces.

⁴ The great objection to reserves for the clergy is, that those for whom the land is set apart never have attempted, and never could successfully attempt, to cultivate or settle the property, and that, by that special appropriation, so much land is withheld from settlers, and kept in a state of waste, to the serious injury of all settlers in its neighbourhood. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that this is the only practice by which such injury has been, and still is, inflicted on actual settlers. In the two Canadas especially, the practice of rewarding, or attempting to reward, public services by grants of public land, has produced, and is still producing, a degree of injury to actual settlers which it is difficult to conceive without having witnessed it. The very principle of such grants is bad, inasmuch as, under any circumstances, they must lead to an amount of appropriation beyond the wants of the community, and greatly beyond the proprietor's means of cultivation and settlement. In both the Canadas, not only has this principle been pursued with reckless profusion, but the local executive governments have managed, by violating or evading the instructions which they received from the secretary of state, to add incalculably to the mischiefs that would have arisen at all events.

⁵ In Upper Canada, 3,200,000 acres have been granted to "U. E. Loyalists," being refugees from the United States, who settled in the province before 1787, and their children: 730,000 acres to militiamen, 450,000 acres to discharged soldiers and sailors, 235,000 acres to magistrates and barristers, 136,000 acres to executive councillors and their families, 50,000 acres to five legislative councillors and their families, 36,900 acres to clergymen as private property, 264,000 acres to persons contracting to make surveys, 92,526 acres to officers of the army and navy, 500,000 acres for the endowment of schools, 43,529 acres to Colonel Talbot, 12,000 acres to the heirs of General Brock, and 12,000 acres to Doctor Mountain, a former bishop of Quebec; making altogether, with the clergy reserves, nearly half of all the surveyed land in the province. In Lower Canada, exclusively of grants to refugee loyalists, as to the amount of which the crown lands' department could furnish me with no information, 450,000 acres have been granted to militiamen, to executive councillors 72,000 acres, to Governor Milne about 48,000 acres, to Mr Cushing and another upwards of 100,000 acres (as a reward for giving information in a case of high treason), to officers and soldiers 200,000 acres, and to "leaders of townships" 1,457,209 acres; making altogether, with the clergy reserves, rather more than half of the surveyed lands originally at the disposal of the crown.