LAND-JOBBING.
Speculation and land-jobbing carried to such a pitch cannot but be deemed great evils in the community; and to prevent them from extending into Canada appears to be an object well worthy the attention of government; but it seems unnecessary to have recourse for that purpose to the very exceptionable measure of withholding a good title to all lands granted by the crown, a measure disabling the landholder from taking the proper steps to improve his estate, which gives rise to distrust and suspicion, and materially impedes the growing prosperity of the country.
It appears to me, that land-jobbing could never arrive at such a height in Canada as to be productive of similar evils to those already sprung up from it in the United States, or similar to those further ones with which the country is threatened, if no more land were granted by the crown, to any one individual, than a township of ten thousand acres; or should it be thought that grants of such an extent even opened too wide a field for speculation, certain restrictions might be laid upon the grantee; he might be bound to improve his township by a clause in the patent, invalidating the sale of more than a fourth or fifth of it unless to actual settlers, until a certain number of people should be resident thereon[[38]]. Such a clause would effectually prevent the evil; for it is the granting of very extensive tracts of waste lands to individuals, without binding them in any way to improve them, which gives rise to speculation and land-jobbing.
[38]. The plan of binding every person that should take up a township to improve it, by providing a certain number of settlers, has not wholly escaped the notice of government; for in the licences of occupation, by which each township is allotted, it is stipulated, that every person shall provide forty settlers for his township; but as no given time is mentioned for the procuring of these settlers, the stipulation becomes nugatory.
By others it is imagined, that the withholding of clear titles to the lands is a measure adopted merely for the purpose of preventing a diminution of the inhabitants from taking place by emigration.
EMIGRATION.
Not only townships have been granted by certificates of occupation, but also numberless small portions of land, from one hundred acres upwards, particularly in Upper Canada, to royalists and others, who have at different periods emigrated from the United States. These people have all of them improved their several allotments. By withholding any better title, therefore, than that of a certificate, they are completely tied down to their farms, unless, indeed, they think proper to abandon them, together with the fruits of many years labour, without receiving any compensation whatsoever for so doing.
It is not probable, however, that these people, if they had a clear title to their lands, would return back to the United States; the royalists, who were driven out of the country by the ill treatment of the other inhabitants, certainly would not; nor would the others, who have voluntarily quitted the country, return, whilst self-interest, which led them originally to come into Canada, operated in favour of their remaining there. It was the prospect of getting land on advantageous terms which induced them to emigrate; land is still a cheaper article in Canada than in the United States; and as there is much more waste land in the former, than in the latter country, in proportion to the number of the inhabitants, it will probably continue so for a length of time to come. In the United States, at present, it is impossible to get land without paying for it; and in parts of the country where the soil is rich, and where some settlements are already made, a tract of land, sufficient for a moderate farm, is scarcely to be procured under hundreds of dollars. In Canada, however, a man has only to make application to government, and on his taking the oath of allegiance, he immediately gets one hundred acres of excellent uncleared land, in the neighbourhood of other settlements, gratis; and if able to improve it directly, he can get even a larger quantity. But it is a fact worthy of notice, which banishes every suspicion relative to a diminution of the inhabitants taking place by emigrations into the States, that great numbers of people from the States actually emigrate into Canada annually, whilst none of the Canadians, who have it in their power to dispose of their property, emigrate into the United States, except, indeed, a very few of those who have resided in the towns.
OBSERVATIONS.
According to the opinion of others again, it is not for either of the purposes already mentioned, that clear titles are withheld to the lands granted by the crown, but for that of binding down to their good behaviour the people of each province, more particularly the Americans that have emigrated from the States lately, who are regarded by many with an eye of suspicion, notwithstanding they have taken the oaths of allegiance to the crown. It is very unfair, however, to imagine that these people would be ready to revolt a second time from Great Britain, if they were made still more independent than they are now, merely because they did so on a former occasion, when their liberties and rights as men and as subjects of the British empire were so shamefully disregarded; on the contrary, were clear titles granted with the lands bestowed by the crown on them, and the other subjects of the province, instead of giving rise to disaffection, there is every reason to think it would make them still more loyal, and more attached to the British government, as no invidious distinction could then be drawn between the condition of the landholders in the States and those in Canada. The material rights and liberties of the people would then be full as extensive in the one country as in the other; and as no positive advantage could be gained by a revolt, it is not likely that Americans, of all people in the world the most devoted to self-interest, would expose their persons and properties in such an attempt.