History of Prince Edward Island

by Duncan Campbell

The commissioners recommended that the imperial parliament should guarantee a loan of one hundred thousand pounds, so that the money could be borrowed at a low rate of interest. With the command of such a fund, the government would be in a condition to enter the market, and to purchase, from time to time, such estates as could be obtained at reasonable prices. They did not doubt that many of the proprietors would be glad to sell, and the competition for the funds at the disposal of the government would so adjust the prices that judicious purchases could be made without any arbitrary proceedings or compulsory interference with private rights. The commissioners felt that it might be beyond their duty to make such a suggestion, but they hoped Her Majesty’s government would regard the case of Prince Edward Island as exceptional, its grievances having sprung from the injudicious mode in which its lands were originally given away.

Assuming that the imperial parliament guaranteed a loan, there remained to be considered the nature of the security which would be offered. Although it was not improbable that doubts might have arisen as to the ability of the colony to repay so large an amount, a glance at its financial position would show that the required relief might be given without the risk of any loss to the mother country. The commissioners showed that the revenue of the island had increased from seventeen thousand pounds in 1839, to forty-one thousand in 1859,—more than doubling itself in twenty years. It seemed apparent, therefore, that without disturbing the tariff or reducing the ordinary appropriations, in five years the natural increase of population, trade, and consumption would give six thousand pounds a year, or a sum sufficient to pay the interest on a hundred thousand pounds, at six per cent. As it was not improbable that five years would be required to purchase the estates, and expend the loan to advantage, it might happen that the revenue would increase as fast as the interest was required, without any increase in the tariff, or diminution of the appropriations. But it might be reasonably assumed, when a new spirit was breathed into the island, and its population turned to the business of life, with new hopes and entire confidence in the future, that trade would be more active, and the condition of the people improve. The very operation of the loan act might therefore supply all the revenue required to meet the difference; but if it should not, an addition of two and a half per cent, upon the imports of the island, or a reduction of the road vote for two or three years, would yield the balance that might be required.

In making their calculations, no reference was made to the fund which would be at once available from the payment of their instalments by the tenants who purchased. Two thousand five hundred pounds had been paid by the tenants on the Selkirk estate in the first year after it was purchased. Guided by the experience thus gained of the disposition and of the resources of the tenantry, it was deemed by the commissioners fair to conclude that if such a sum could be promptly realized from sales of land, admitted to be among the poorest in the island, the local government might fairly count upon the command of such an increase, from the re-sale of the estates they might purchase, as would enable them to keep faith with the public creditor, without any risk of embarrassment.

In considering the remedies to be applied, three conclusions forced themselves on the commissioners: that the original grants were improvident and ought never to have been sanctioned; that all the grants were liable to forfeiture for breach of the conditions with respect to settlement, and might have been justly escheated; and that all the grants might have been practically annulled by the enforcement of quitrents, and the lands seized and sold by the Crown, at various times, without the slightest impeachment of its honor. But whilst this opinion was firmly held, still, the Sovereign having repeatedly confirmed the original grants, it was impossible to treat the grantees in any other manner than as the lawful possessors of the soil.

Assuming, then, the sufficiency of the original grants, and the binding authority of the leases, the commissioners were clearly of opinion that the leasehold tenure should be converted into freehold. It was, they said, equally the interest of the imperial and local governments that this should be done, that agrarian questions should be swept from the field of controversy, that Her Majesty’s ministers might be no longer assailed by remonstrance and complaint, and that the public men in the island might turn their attention to the development of its resources.

Assuming, therefore, that a compulsory compromise was inevitable, the question arose: upon what terms should the proprietors be compelled to sell, and the tenants be at liberty to purchase?

In answer to this important question, the commissioners awarded that tenants who tendered twenty years’ purchase to their landlords, in cash, should be entitled to a discount of ten percent., and a deed conveying the fee-simple of their farms. Where the tenant preferred to pay by instalments, he should have that privilege; but the landlord would not be bound to accept a less sum than ten pounds at any time; nor should the tenant have a longer time than ten years to liquidate the debt. The tenants whose lands were not worth twenty years’ purchase, and who therefore declined to pay that amount, might tender to their landlords what they considered the value of their farms. If the landlord declined to accept the amount offered, the value should be adjusted by arbitration. If the sum tendered was increased by the award, the tenant was to pay the expenses; if it was not, they should be paid by the landlord. It was provided that the rent should be reduced in proportion to the instalments paid; but no credit should be given for any such instalments until the three years arrears allowed by the commissioners’ award were paid, nor while any rent accruing after the adjustment of the value of the farm remained due. Proprietors who held not more than fifteen thousand acres, or such as desired to hold particular lands to that extent, were not to be compelled to part with such lands under the award. Leases under a term of less than forty years were not affected by the award.

With regard to arrears of rent due, it was awarded by the commissioners that a release of all arrears, beyond those which had accrued during the three years preceding the first of May, would be for the benefit of both landlords and tenants.

With regard to the case of the descendants of the loyalists who sought homes in Prince Edward Island after the confiscation of their properties in the old revolted colonies, the commissioners considered that they had claims on the local government. His Majesty’s government, in 1783, felt the full force of the claims of their ancestors, and was sincere in its desire to make a liberal provision for them; but the rights which they had then acquired, when the proprietors had engaged to make certain grants of land for their benefit, were, unfortunately, not enforced. The commissioners recommended that the local government should make free grants to such as could prove that their fathers had been lured to the island under promises which had never been fulfiled.

With regard to the claims of the descendants of the original French inhabitants, the commissioners, with every desire to take a generous view of the sufferings of persons whose only crime was adherence to the weaker side in a great national struggle, could not, after the lapse of a century, rescue them from the ordinary penalties incident to a state of war.