In the last 20 years a steady increase in exports at an average rate of about 3 per cent. per annum is noted, the total in 1903 culminating at nearly $41 million, but in the following year sinking to 36.7 million. In 1910, the total export amounted to $53 million, against which an import of nearly $16 million is to be offset, nearly double what it was three years before. Adding wood manufactures, the net export must be increased by some $36 million. The bulk of the export goes, of course, to the United States. But, while exports of forest products thus increased absolutely, relatively to other exports they have considerably declined, i.e., the lumber industry has not grown proportionally to other developments, for while, in 1868, forest products formed 34 per cent. of the total export, in 1904 they represented only about half that figure.
The same conclusion, namely that the lumber business has not increased rapidly in the last 25 years, may be derived from the report of the Decennial Census. While, for 1890, the total cut amounted to over 5 billion feet and its value to nearly $80 million, in 1900, the cut or at least the Census report fell below 4 billion and its value to $53 million. In 1909, the total lumber cut was reported as 3.8 billion feet B. M. and its value $62.8 million.
A measure of the depletion of the great staple White Pine is found in the statement that from 1865 to 1893 the average size of pieces decreased by one-quarter to one-third, and that, in 1863, over 23 million cubic feet were exported from Quebec as against 1.5 million feet in 1904, while the price had more than quadrupled in that period. Spruce has here taken the place of pine, and Ontario is now the main producer of pine. Yet in 1909, the White Pine cut in amount almost equaled that of spruce, and in value exceeded it by 40 per cent. Spruce, and especially pulpwood, forms an ever increasing item in cut and export, export of pulpwood having increased sevenfold in the last decade, to nearly $2 million, and of woodpulp to over $4 million.
A notable economic improvement has taken place during the last ten or fifteen years in that the proportion of raw materials exported, especially logs and square timber, has decreased in favor of manufactures.
While originally the home country took the bulk of exports of forest products, the cut of Ontario has been always, duty or no duty, sent almost entirely to the United States. In the last six or eight years, the export to the United States has been doubled, amounting now to about half of the total export, and as the States return of its own forest products largely in the form of manufactures to the extent of about 6 million dollars worth, a balance of trade for the Canadian forest product of 12 million dollars is left.
2. Ownership.
When the French took possession of the country, all the land belonged to the king, and could be held by others only under feudal tenure, i.e., as a gift under obligation of counter service. The whole country was placed as a fief under the rule of the Hundred Associates, a company which also exercised a trading and colonizing monopoly, but made no success, and was dissolved in 1663. It was then that Richelieu introduced the system of seigniorial tenure, the land being divided into portions of from 100 to 500 square miles, usually with a certain amount of river front, and given outright to younger noblemen, favorites of the court, and clerics, who were, however, obligated to subgrant to colonists, thereby becoming so many immigration agents. These not only treated their colonists as tenants, exacting rent and service, but exercised nearly absolute jurisdiction within their domains, the colonists becoming virtually serfs or retainers of the seigneurs. This condition continued until 1854, when an adjustment of rights was formulated by the Seigneurial Tenures Act, and the government aided the “habitans” to secure their freedom by indemnifying the seigneurs, or else by paying rent, which was done mostly.
Under English rule, the granting of lands, without, however, the seignorial rights, was continued. In 1784, such grants were made along the St. Lawrence and the Bay of Quinte to veterans of the loyalist army, some 20,000, in lots of 200 acres for privates up to 5,000 acres for field officers. In 1791, every seventh section was ordered to be set aside as Clergy Reserves for the support of the Protestant Church, a measure which created much friction, and formed, especially in the Roman Catholic province of Quebec, a chief grievance in starting the Papineau rebellion of 1837. Some 3,300,000 acres were gradually withdrawn for this purpose, and as far as possible leased to secure an income. Some of these lands were sold after 1827, and finally, in 1853, a statute was passed to sell the remainder and turn over the proceeds to municipalities for educational purposes and local improvement.
Extensive grants and sales were made to lumbermen and speculators. In this manner, by the granting of 13,000 acres to an American, Philemon Wright, in 1800, the great lumber industry of Ottawa was started, and, in 1836, another American syndicate secured about a million acres of grants. Out of the 50 million acres granted in aid of railroad construction, some portion must also have been in timber. By all these methods as well as by small grants and sales to settlers a large area of uncertain extent has become private property.
In Nova Scotia, nearly the entire government domain has passed by grant and sale into private hands, some 6 million acres, one-half in small holdings. Of the lands remaining in the crown at least two-thirds is on barrens. Similarly, in Prince Edward Island, the 800 square miles of woodland remaining are almost wholly owned privately, the 14,000 acres of state land being, like most of the private property, stripped of its value.