With The Best Intentions, The British Government May Be Justly
Accused Of Gross Ignorance Of The True Principles Of Colonisation,
And the local governments are still more open to the accusation of
squandering the resources of the colony - its lands
- In building
up the fortunes of a would-be aristocracy, who being non-resident
proprietors of wild lands, necessarily obstructed the progress of
improvement, while the people were tantalised with the empty
semblance of a free government.
No sooner did emigrants from Great Britain begin to pour into Upper
Canada, so as to afford a prospect of the wild lands becoming
saleable, than a system of land speculation was resorted to by many
of the old colonists. This land speculation has no doubt enriched
many individuals, but more than any other abuse has it retarded the
natural progress of the country, and the interests of the many have
thus been sacrificed to those of the few. Almost all other
speculations may be said, in one shape or another, to do good; but
land speculation has been an unmitigated curse to Canada, because it
occasions a monopoly of the soil, and prevents it from being cleared
and rendered productive, until the speculators can obtain their own
price for it.
The lands granted to soldiers and sailors who had served in Canada,
and those granted to the U.E. loyalists, were bought up, often
at merely nominal prices, from the original grantees and their
children, and sold again with an immense profit to new settlers
from the old country, or retained for many years in an unproductive
state. A portion of the lands granted to the U.E. loyalists was, of
course, occupied by the heads of families; but the lands to which
their children became entitled, under the same benevolent provision
of the government, were generally drawn in remote situations. By
far the larger portion of these grants, however, were not located
or rendered available by the grantees, but remained in the shape
of U.E. rights, which were purchased at very low prices by the
speculators. These U.E. rights were bought at the rate of 1s. 3d.,
2s. 6d., or 3s. 9d. per acre; and it was by no means uncommon for
old soldiers to sell one hundred acres of land for two or three
dollars, or even for a bottle of rum, so little value did they set
on such grants in the then state of Canada. These grants, though
well meant, and with respect to the U.E. Loyalists, perhaps,
unavoidable, have been most injurious to the country.
The great error in this matter, and which could have been avoided,
was the opening of too great an extent of land AT ONCE for
settlement. A contrary system, steadily pursued, would have produced
a concentrated population; and the resources of such a population
would have enabled the colonists, by uniting their labour and
capital, to make the means of communication, in some degree, keep
pace with the settlement of the lands; and Upper Canada would now
have been as well provided with canals and railroads as the United
States. The same abuses, no doubt, existed formerly to as great an
extent in that country, but, being longer settled, it has outgrown
the evil. Enough has been said on this subject to show some of the
causes which have retarded improvements in Canada.
Another chief cause of the long and helpless torpor in which the
country lay, was the absence of municipal governments in the various
rural localities. It indeed seems strange, that such a simple matter
as providing the means of making roads and bridges by local
assessment could not have been conceded to the people, who, if we
suppose them to be gifted with common sense, are much more capable
of understanding and managing their own parish business, than any
government, however well disposed to promote their interests.
Formerly the government of Upper Canada was deluged with petitions
for grants of money from Parliament to be expended in improvements
in this or that locality, of the reasonableness of which claims the
majority of the legislators were, of course, profoundly ignorant.
These money grants became subjects of a species of jobbing, or
manoeuvering, among the members of the House of Assembly; and he
was considered the best member who could get the most money for
his county. Commissioners resident in the particular localities
were appointed to superintend these public works; and as these
commissioners were generally destitute of practical knowledge,
these Parliamentary grants were usually expended without producing
equivalent results. Nothing in the abstract is more reasonable
than that any number of individuals should be allowed to associate
themselves for the purpose of effecting some local improvement,
which would be beneficial to others as well as to themselves; but
nothing of this could be attempted without an Act of Parliament,
which, of course, was attended with expense and delay, if not
disappointment. The time and attention of the provincial parliament
were thus occupied with a mass of parish business, which could have
been much better managed by the people themselves on the spot.
When the union of the two provinces was in contemplation, it became
evident that the business of such an extended colony could not be
carried on in the United Parliament, were it to be encumbered and
distracted with the contending claims of so many localities. This
consideration led to the establishment of the District (now County)
Municipal Councils. These municipal councils were denounced by the
conservative party at the time as a step towards republicanism! Were
this true, it would only prove that the government of our republican
neighbours is better than our own; for these municipal institutions
have been eminently beneficial to Canada. But municipal councils are
necessarily no more republican in their nature, than the House of
Commons in England. However this may be, the true prosperity of
Upper Canada may be mainly attributed to their influence on the
minds of the people.
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