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.
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