HC Deb 15 August 1843 vol 71 cc762-92
Mr. C. Buller

rose and said—Sir, I owe some explanation for bringing the subject of colonization before the House at so late a period of the Session, as to render it impossible for me to attain such practical results as I once hoped to secure even now. It is not wholly my fault. Immediately after the discussion of my motion of last April, I felt that the unexpectedly favourable reception which the House gave to the general views which I then laid before it, and the interest which the public generally evinced on the subject of colonization, rendered it incumbent on me to supply what had been remarked on in the debate, what was generally remarked on in the country as the defective point of my statement—namely, the want of some detailed plan for securing to the country the beneficial application of sound principles of colonization. I did, in consequence, even before the Easter recess, give notice of a motion for leave to bring in a bill, which I should have brought in, had not a severe illness, and a very protracted recovery, put it out of my power to devote myself to a task requiring for its accomplishment at least all the energy which I possess. I deeply regret that the delay, thus occasioned, has compelled me to postpone that motion till it is impossi- ble for Parliament to pass any measure during the present Session. For certainly nothing has occurred since my motion of April, to shake my conviction of the pressing and great necessity under which this country labours, of having recourse to extensive and systematic colonization as a remedy for the exigencies of its position. I then based by motion on a survey of the great and acknowledge difficulties of our social condition. I had to describe a grievous temporary aggravation of permanent evils in the condition of the country; and I am sorry to say that I see nothing to justify me in believing that any remedy has been found for the permanent causes of distress, nor even that we can flatter ourselves with a belief in any substantial alleviation of our temporary suffering. Whatever improvement, as yet but temporary, may have taken place in some departments of trade and manufactures, others labour under a severer depression at present than they did in the earlier part of the year. Recent events have forced us to pay great attention to the condition of the Irish people; and while just stress has been laid on the political causes which affect the tranquility of that country, we have been forced to admit the existence of an immense amount of material suffering, and to trace its origin to bad social arrangements. In another part of the United Kingdom, open and wide-spread turbulence have compelled us to look a little into the material condition of the people: and however some superficial inquirers may be content to take extortionate tolls as a sufficient explanation of the Rebecca riots, none but superficial inquirers can fail to see that so daring, organized, and universal violation of the laws betokens a general uneasiness, the cause of a general disaffection. Since I addressed you in April, time and fortune, instead of removing our ills and our anxieties, have thickened the gloom that hangs around us, while discussion and inquiry have gone on spreading over the community a knowledge of the suffering that exists, and the alarm that its existence must engender in every thinking mind. In the mean time, what has the Legislature done? Look back at the blank annals of the present Session, and what has been done? What substantial good has been effected? Nay, what foundation of future good has been laid? What promise of better things have been held out? You are closing this Session without a single mentionable measure, without even a hope of relief, and your answer to the cry of unmitigated distress is, that the suffering people are to expect no good from the wisdom of their rulers. It is now too late completely to repair this evil; and as Parliament is to rest from its labours whether its work be done or not, we must face for some time the consequences of our inaction. All that we can now do, is to give the public some ground for hoping that another year our labours will not be perfectly barren. And though it is customary in this House to dwell very strongly on the danger of exciting hopes which can not be realised, it seems to me that in the present state of things with the suffering now pressing on the people, with the political doctrines now current among them, there is far greater danger from our raising no hopes at all in their minds, and leaving them in perfect despair of any good from their rulers. I did at one time hope that the Session might have terminated otherwise. Some hopes were, I confess, excited by something that passed in the debate on the motion of my firm Friend the Member for Limerick. My noble Friend the Member for Sunderland, in the course of that most statesmanlike speech which he delivered on that occasion, dwelt on extensive and systematic emigration as a prominent and primary remedy for the social evils of Ireland; and I was glad to find that the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government, in noticing the various suggestions of my noble Friend, did not dispose of this with a declaration either of hostility or of doubt, but treated it as one of which he felt the practical value, and to which he was prepared to give due consideration; and though this favourable intimation has as yet produced no visible result, in the shape either of actual measures or even of definite promise, I trust that we may regard the favourable language of the right hon. Baronet as not wholly unmeaning; and that we may conclude that he is disposed during the recess to give this great subject that careful consideration of which he has declared it to be worthy. A full consideration of the subject has induced me to abstain for the present from bringing the general subject of colonization before the House. Whenever I do so I shall have to invite your attention to no simple development of some single and striking expedient, by the sole efficiency of which every difficulty may be certainly and easily surmounted. We have already advanced beyond this. The general principles of sound colonization are known and admitted by all; and we are now come to that stage, in which colonization, like all other great practical benefits, has to be perfected by that patient labour, by that minute attention to detail, by that consistent, systematic, concentrated assiduity, by which alone great schemes are brought to be realities, and the merit of public usefulness is won. It would require on the part of the House a really laborious attention to many and complicated causes that produce the utter inadequacy of our present system of colonization, and to many and complicated suggestions of apparently small changes, which would, I believe, result in a very great improvement. It would be useless to attempt this now. I feel that this is not the period, at which I can expect to win such attention, even from those whose good dispositions I have so fully experienced; and I feel, moreover, that even were I to succeed in making such an impression, its effect would pass away before the occasion for carrying my views into practical effect shall really arrive. I must, therefore, postpone till the beginning of next Session any attempt to bring before the House, any general plan for the improvement of our system of colonization. There is, however, one portion of the subject to which, for particular reasons, I feel it necessary not to allow the Session to close without adverting, and on which I must now give an outline of the plans, which I have hopes that during the recess the most effectual steps may be taken for testing its soundness; and (if the result of the test be satisfactory) of promoting its adoption. In all previous discussions of practical plans for making the waste lands of our colonies available for purposes of colonization, we have been in the habit of putting British North America wholly out of consideration, on the ground that in all the most important of our possessions, there we have placed the waste lands out of our control, by giving them up, in common with all the other sources of the revenue of the Crown, to the provincial legislatures. I have myself treated the question, as it regards these colonies, in this manner, merely because, feeling that the course to be adopted with regard to them must be different from that which should be applied to those colonies in which our power of legislation is wholly unrestricted, I judged it most convenient, while discussing general principles, not to divert attention to an exceptionable case. But I must own, I should regard any practical scheme of colonization as most defective and unsatisfactory which proposed to leave British North America entirely out of the field of colonization. These colonies have one obvious and great advantage, as every one must be aware, over ail other portions of our empire, in their greater nearness to the mother country. The emigrant, who can avail himself of steam, could, with ease, be at the westernmost point of Canada, in about a fortnight. Even the poorest, though compelled to resort to the slowest means of communication, need not provide for more than a six weeks' sea voyage, and might count on reaching the same distance in two months. The nature of our Canadian trade renders the outward voyage peculiarly cheap in proportion even to its length. And though the unoccupied regions of our American dominions present no such vast field for the future extension of our race as are offered by the wide regions of our Australian, and, perhaps, of our African quarters of the globe—though they promise no such vast variety of produce of such value—though they fill our imaginations with no such certain, though distant, prospects of boundless empire—they offer us an immense space more than any other available for the immediate wants of this and many succeeding generations. Millions might live and thrive on a vast extent of rich land, in which climate, soil, and water, unite in favouring the easy production of food, whether for the consumption of the people or for exportation to other countries; and to and from which the most capacious harbours, and the most abundant facilities for internal communication afford the amplest means of access and of carriage. I find the late Lord Sydenham, the best of practical judges of such matters, expatiating in enthusiastic terms on the natural capabilities of the country. Speaking (I use his own words) of The great district, nearly as large as Ireland, placed between the three lakes—Erie, Ontario, and Huron," (he goes on to say)—" You can conceive nothing finer; the most magnificent soil in the world—four feet of vegetable mould—a climate certainly the best in North America—the greater part of it admirably watered. In the word, there is land enough, and capabilities enough for some millions of people, and for one of the finest provinces in the world. Of another tract of great extent, the eastern townships of Lower Canada, he speaks in almost equal terms of praise, rating it below the western district of Upper Canada only in the advantage of natural means of communication by water; and other regions, of which he did not speak, are equally inviting. In all these portions of our possessions, there is room enough to establish in plenty, at least half the present dense population of the British islands, and it would certainly be a lamentable, though for the advocate of colonization, were he compelled to abandon this noble field, placed so peculiarly within our reach, as one which was never to be rendered available to us by the application of vigorous efforts, and a sound system. I do not deny that the cession of the land revenues has placed some difficulties in the way of our applying a sounder system of colonization to Canada. I shall limit my present motion, and the practical suggestions which I have to make, to Canada, because it will simplify my task to speak now of that particular colony which I know best; more especially, when it happens to be placed in circumstances so very similar to those of its neighbours, and to be also so much the most influential of the whole group of colonies, that there can be no fear but that a good example set there would speedily be followed in the others. I say, then, that the difficulties created by the cessions of the Crown lands of Canada do not seem to be insuperable. For we have not, it must be recollected, by any means parted with our control over the lands, but only over the proceeds of the sales. The Crown still retains the entire management of the lands. I will not say that I think very lightly of the wisdom of the arrangement, by which the management of such a property is placed in the hands of one party and the proceeds are to be expended by another. But it has this advantage, that at any rate we have not entirely divested ourselves of all authority in the matter. We have a voice still, though to render our efforts available for the purpose of colonization, we require the co-operation of others, who alone can direct the proceeds of the land sales to a useful distribution. All we have to do is to get that oo-operation; and I must say that had there been no cession of the revenues in question I think we must equally have done this; for in dealing with such a province as that of Canada, I should have been very loth to impose on it any plan which its Legislature had not considered, to which that Legislature had not given the benefit of amendments suggested by experience, and which it had not ratified by its sanction. I rely most cordially on its co-operation in any well-considered scheme, for if emigration be needful to us, colonization is the first necessity of British North America, and of such necessity the colonial Legislature is at least as well aware as we are. The plan by which I would propose to promote colonization to Canada, though proceeding on the same principles as that which should be applied to Australia, New Zealand, and other colonies, would differ from it considerably in detail. The difference between the present position of Canada and that of those colonies renders it necessary that in the two cases very different means should be taken to attain the same end. We have one very great advantage in dealing with Canada, and that is the comparative cheapness and facility of emigration thither. But, on the other hand, we have a class of difficulties to contend with there, which, though not unknown, though not otherwise than very formidable in every one, even of our newest colonies, exist there in gigantic dimensions. These are the difficulties created by former mismanagement, by that perversion of the ends, and exhaustion of the means of colonization, which has naturally been the result of long perseverence in the oldest of our extensive colonies in a system of colonization founded on no principles at all, and conducted with langour, caprice, and a total recklessness of public interests. Those Gentlemen who either have read or will take the trouble to read the documents, which contain the most authentic information on the subject, will see that it is almost impossible to exaggerate the mischief of that mismanagement, or the condemnation which it deserves. I refer more especially to the report on "Public Lands and Emigration," which is contained in Appendix (B.) to Lord Durham's Report; and which, though it bears my sig- nature, I have from the moment of its publication acknowledged to be the work of Mr. Wakefield. The representations of past evils, which are contained in that report, are condensed into a more popular and striking form in that part of Lord Durham's general report, which is headed "Disposal of Public Lands—Emigration." Every statement in both the larger and the more condensed of these views, is fully borne out by the mass of evidence given in Appendix B, and though Lord Durham's report, and its accompanying documents have now been more than four years before the public, and have been exposed to the criticism of the numerous and powerful bodies, whose misconduct it exposed without measure, and who, consequently, had and have shown the strongest disposition to discredit all its statements, I may fearlessly assert, that not the slightest shock has been given to the entire accuracy of its representations. I may rely therefore with confidence on the absolutely unimpeached accuracy of the statements contained in these documents, prepared as they were with the greatest labour, and publicly given to the world under the highest official authority, and under the deepest sense of the responsibility attaching to every word uttered on so solemn an occasion. I will not now trouble the House with describing the various forms in which the mismanagement of the public lands of Canada affected their disposal. Where ignorance, carelessness, and jobbery ran riot, unchecked through every department, there was not a stage in the process in which some abuse or another did not interfere to mar all public objects, and check all private enterprises. I will remark that it will greatly tend to clear Gentlemen's views on this subject, if they will cast their eyes over the details of the various abuses described in the reports and evidence to which I have referred. They will see how from first to last, the entire system proceeded on no principles at all; how one system prevailed in one colony, and exactly the reverse in its neighbour; how the system of to-day was changed on the morrow to one of the most contrary nature; and how, without formal change, it was violated from day to day by the caprice of the governor or his subordinates. They will see with what perverse ingenuity it was contrived, that while the most undue facilities were given for the acquisition of large masses of land by persons who could make no good use of it, every obstacle was placed in the way of the purchaser who was really to be a settler; what trouble, expense, and delay preceded his choice of the spot, and, again, what incalculable trouble, expense, and delay were interposed by the carelessness and extortion of the Government offices before a title could be got to the land selected and purchased. They will also see how worthless that title was rendered by the blunders of the surveys; how whole townships were laid down with wrongly drawn lines; how, owing to these blunders, it was a frequent occurrence, for one purchaser to find that he had got a section containing a fourth more, another, less lucks, one a fourth less than he had paid for: how sometimes the hopeless set-after carrying his family, and goods, and implements, and stock, over long miles of almost impassable road, to the spot numbered out in his grant, found that it was included in another man's estate, or that it comprised nothing but a portion of a lake, or even that it existed nowhere save on the surveyor-general's map. I invite your attention to these facts, partly, because, I wish you to understand what ample cause existed for the deplorable results, which have prevented the colonization of Canada, and partly, because, in entering on a new career of colonization, it is good that you should divest your minds of all superstitious reverence for the practical authority of those officials, whose blunders and frauds engendered—whose apathy and ignorance sanctioned—and whose presumptuous obstinacy defended—these execrable practices. I may now pass over these topics, because many of these abuses have been partially corrected, and may by very simple specific means be entirely renewed; and because I wish to fix your attention on the one great mischief, which is the result of these and other faults, namely, the reckless profusion of grants which has taken the wild lands of Canada out of the hands of the public and placed them in the nominal possession of a few proprietors, who can neither use them themselves, nor render them subservient to the promotion of any great public purpose, or general plan. This is the main difficulty which meets us in the outset of any attempt to colonise Canada. The country is still unsettled, but not unappropriated; the lands are wild, but the Go- vernment cannot use them. In its bad its property was jobbed away. Some was granted to governors, some to executive councillors, some to the dependents of men in power; a large portion was assigned to form a provision of the most objectionable kind for the clergy and a still larger portion was allotted to other classes of persons who were considered to have claims on the Government, which were satisfied by grants of land instead of pensions. The result was, that at the period of Lord Durham's report, out of 17,000,000 of acres comprised within the surveyed districts of Upper Canada, the whole had been alienated, except about 700,000 acres, which are said to be inferior in position or quality. In Lower Canada, about 1,500,000 acres are left ungranted, out of more than 6,000,000, which are contained in the surveyed townships. These instances are not of so glaring a nature as that of Prince Edward's Island, the whole of which being about 1,500,000 acres of excellent land, were literally granted away in one day in London to absentee proprietors, whose heirs still keep them, and prevent their being turned to any useful account, But the evil in Canada is practically as great as it can be. You may fairly say, that the whole of the surveyed land has been alienated; and is now the property either of large absentee proprietors, who, with the exception of the Canada and other companies, and a very few private individuals, do nothing for the settlement of them, or of very poor persons, who have got almost for nothing, tracts, which they have neither capital nor labour to cultivate. The low price for which land could be got, has tempted every settler to become a proprietor; almost every man is a proprietor of more than he can use, and is either a rich absentee without the disposition, or a needy settler, without the means of hiring labour. These are the inevitable results of giving undue facilities to the acquisition of land. Lord Durham, in the part of his report to which I have referred, has described the tendency of such a system as evinced by the present state of Canada, I need not now go through the painful description which he has given of the backward and unimproving condition of the country. The deplorable truth is too sufficiently proved by a single circumstance instanced by him, and which, in spite of the recent distress pervading the United days States, is stated still to be the fact by Mr. Buckingham, one of the most recent travellers in America. I mean the universally and greatly superior value of land on the American, over that of the British side of the frontier line. Indeed, a great part of the land in our colonies is practically valueless, even at that very low price. Mr. Stayner, the Deputy-Postmaster-General, one of the largest proprietors of wild land in Lower Canada, gave this evidence before the commission appointed by Lipid Durham:— Twenty years ago, or thereabout, I purchased wild land, at what was then considered a low price, in the natural hope, that it would be gradually increasing in value; and that, whenever I might choose to sell, it would be at such a profit as would afford me a fair return for the use of the money employed; so far, however, from realising this expectation, I now find, after the lapse of so many years, when the accumulated interest upon the money invested has increased the cost of the land 150 per cent.—I say, I find, that I could not, if compelled to sell this land, obtain more for it than it originally cost me. Several witnesses are stated to have asserted that it is impossible to obtain money on mortgage of wild land, because the system of granting Crown lands has rendered the value so uncertain. Such was the effect of this profuse disposal of Crown lands in checking the progress of the colony. It has scattered the population over a wide extent of country, in little farms separated by vast tracts of unsettled land in the possession of absentee proprietors, and unconnected by roads either with each other or with markets. The settler can raise food for himself, but can with difficulty sell, and, therefore, is not much tempted to raise a surplus produce. He has no motive, and no means for employing labour; but tilling with his own hands, and those of his family just enough of his land to support themselves and keeping every body else off the remainder of his property, he goes on just raising from year to year enough for the consumption of the year, without making any progress in comfort or in civilization. And thus you have the greater part of Upper Canada, and the townships, cultivated in scattered patches by small proprietors, who neither accumulate nor improve. The effect of this system on the large proprietors may be judged from the descriptions which I have previously quoted. No one would rent their land while he could get land from the Crown almost for nothing; and few of them had the disposition or the ability to take vigorous measures and expend sufficient capital to bring the estate into cultivation. The result is that described by Mr. Stayner, in the passage of his evidence which I quoted before, that these great estates are absolutely valueless, producing no rent, unsaleable at a profit, very often without absolute loss, and not available for the purpose of raising money on mortgage. On the other hand, see its inevitable effects on emigration. The emigrant, who arrived in the colony with means to buy and clear a farm, sometimes settled on it, and after long years of hardship, arrived at the state of rude and mere competence which I have described. Even of this class a great number were tempted to go on into the States, whither great facilities of acquiring land, a greater choice of situation, and every chance of a more civilized existence, and a more improving lot invited them. But the labourer who arrived in Canada with nothing but his labour, found hardly any means of employment, save what the towns afforded or what might be got on public works. The farmers of the colony created but a small demand for labour. The consequence was that the greater portion of the mere labouring class landed in Canada merely to go on into the United States, where certain employment at high wages was to be had. Lord Durham's report states as the result of a comparison of calculations made by very competent persons, that during the eight years preceding, at least one half of the emigrants from Great Britain to Canada had re-emigrated into the United States. It has been stated that this emigration through Canada to the States is now stopped; indeed, we have been told that as many as 6,000 British emigrants had emigrated during the course of last year from the States into Canada; and it seems to be inferred that the process of emigration between Canada and the United States is now completely reversed. I have no doubt that the fact is correctly stated, and when you recollect that just in that very year the great public works in the state of New York ceased simultaneously with the commencement of great public works in Canada, no one can wonder that as many as 6,000 of the Irish labourers and their families formerly congregated about the Erie canal and other works, transferred themselves across the frontier in search of employment. But I think it would be too much to infer from this that the old accustomed emigration of artizans and agriculturists through Canada to the Far West has entirely ceased, or does not go on as much as usual. The only inference to be drawn from the altered state of things last year is, that the providing employment for the labourer on public works, in Canada, and the opening up the country for settlement, have a great tendency to keep the emigrants in our territory. Indeed, when last the question was before the House, we were warned that the real danger to Canada was to be apprehended from too great a supply of labour being poured in; and we were told that Canada was riot the place for persons to go to who have nothing but their labour to depend upon, but that it was well suited for persons of some small means. I should be very loth to come to the same conclusion. Neither for the relief of the mother country, nor the settlement of Canada, can I believe that an emigration entirely or mainly consisting of persons of small means would be sufficient. There is no doubt absolutely a large class of persons in this country, who possess small means, and at the same time the disposition and the ability to contend with the hardship of the life of a settler in the backwoods of Canada. But comparatively a small proportion of those in this country who can labour possess such means; and if you rely merely on an emigration of that class, you will never afford sufficient relief to the labouring population of this country, and you will never give the due impulse to the prosperity of Canada. When I consider the great proximity of Canada, and the comparative cheapness of the passage to it, I cannot but consider it as after all affording the readiest outlet for the surplus capital and labour. I cannot contentedly tell the suffering thousands who are annually resorting to Canada at their own cost, and the many thousands more who desire to do so, that the relief which they seek is not to be found so easily; for that Canada is not available to the poor emigrants from Great Britain, and still more from Ireland, who has nothing but his labour to carry abroad with him. It is our duty, it seems to me, to render Canada available to our people, and our people available to Canada. And in order to do that we must in Canada, as in our other colonies, endeavour to get over the great impediment to colonization, by securing the simultaneous emigration of capital and labour; we must tempt the capitalist to embark his money in the improvement of Canada, by ensuring him labour for the cultivation of his property, and we must invite the labourer thither by holding out to him the certainty of being employed by others, until he shall have accumulated sufficient means for becoming a thriving proprietor. This we can only do by applying to Canada the principles on which our colonization should be conducted elsewhere. There, as elsewhere, the placing a sufficient price on waste lands must furnish the means of colonization, while it would serve the yet more important purpose of concentrating the population, which your former system seemed devised with a view of scattering as widely as possible. But here in the outset the difficulty meets us that almost the whole waste land of Canada is at the present moment appropriated; but the Government has no power to make it available for any sound system of colonization; and that the greater part of the proprietors not only cannot be induced to adopt the best system, but do not even use their land at all. It would be useless, as I before said, to attempt to try any better system on the comparatively small portion of surveyed, or even on the large extent of unsurveyed waste lands, which still remain in the Crown; because every right step taken with respect to them will be neutralized by the bad system allowed with respect to the land of individuals. It is quite obvious that while a large extent of property is allowed to lie uncultivated in the possession of individuals, the improvement of a colony is hopeless. The experience of every colony has proved this. The public feeling of every colony has determined that no respect for private property must allow it to become a public nuisance; and the legislation of every colony contains some device or another for preventing the mischief. The two most common plans have been a law of escheat, whereby property, of which a certain proportion had not been reclaimed after a certain period, becomes forfeited to the Crown; and a wild land tax, which in one form or another is generally adopted even in the United States, and in some of our present colonies. My report to Lord Durham recommended the imposition of a wild land tax, which was to be payable in land, and which would inevitably have had the effect, in course of time, of bringing almost the whole of the wild lands into the possession of the Crown. I have not the slightest misgiving as to the correctness of the reasoning by which this proposal was supported. But I am inclined to think that a much more speedy process for getting the wild lands into the possession of the Government is wanted in the present state of things, than any which could be effected by a wild land tax, unless you mean it to be a measure of summary confiscation. Put on a wild land tax such as that proposed in my report of 2d. an acre; the present absentee proprietors will be unable to pay it in money, and their lands will gradually become the property of the Government. But the process will not have effect for a great many years. It will be a long time even before the amount of land thus acquired by the Crown will produce any sensible effect on the land market; and the application of a sound system to the Crown lands will be still further thwarted by the immense quantity of land which the proprietors will throw into the market at low prices, under the alarm of losing it altogether. Nevertheless, unless the nuisance of this immense amount of wild lands be removed in some milder way, the proprietors may make up their minds to being loaded with a very heavy tax on them. If the provincial legislature does not impose one, the district councils, which have now by law the power, will be sure to do so with very little scruple. In the eastern towns, by an ordinance which was disallowed, it is true, but which did not the less show the disposition of the council of that district, that body I understand imposed on the British North American Company one simple rate, of so enormous an amount as by itself to be equivalent to direct confiscation. In the French districts the disposition would be quite the same; only luckily, from the unpopularity of the mode in which the municipal law was passed by the authority of special council, the French districts councils have hitherto taken the line of making no use at all of their powers. But the danger is that the powers of local taxation vested in these bodies will ere long be used, and without measure, against the wild lands. I think, therefore, that some precaution should be taken to secure the rights of the existing proprietors, even while our main object is that of securing the settlement of the wild lands. A plan for this object has been suggested, of which I will briefly state the outline, for the purpose of its being fully considered both here and in Canada. The Government might at once determine to take into its own hands the whole of the wild lands in Canada, compensating the proprietors for the present value of them. For this purpose a general valuation of all the appropriated wild lands of the province would be the first step necessary; a process, doubtless, requiring some time and expense, but nothing like what the mention of a general valuation suggests to us in this country. For it would be wrong, as it would be impossible, in Canada to fix a special value on each acre. The value of an estate there is mainly determined by considerations of position and general character, which apply to vast extents of territory, and every valuation, therefore, must be framed on a large scale. The present value of all those lands might easily be ascertained; for though if all brought into market now they would probably not sell at all, still there is in every district of Canada a price which it is calculated that a purchaser wishing to buy any particular lot, would give for it, and below which the proprietors would generally entertain no offer of purchase. This would be the value, but it should be provided, as I think is just in all cases of compulsory appropriation for public purposes, that the compensation should always equal any sum actually paid for the land by the present proprietor. The value might be as much higher as the valuers might think that altered circumstances had rendered just; but the price actually paid by the existing proprietor should always be the minimum of the value placed on his estate. The proportional interest of each proprietor of wild lands being thus ascertained, I do not propose that the Government, on taking the land, should compensate him by an actual payment of the estimated purchase money. For recollect what the actual value of the land to those proprietors is. It is totally unproductive; it brings no rent; no money can be raised on it, even by way of mortgage. It has a kind of fancied value in the market; but even this value is a deferred one. At the present rate of settlement the proprietor cannot count on getting anything from his land for many long years. In taking the wild land, therefore, we may fairly say that the Government takes that which brings in no present income, and cannot at present be sold. If the Government, in taking the land, ensures to the proprietor a payment of its value at as early a period as he would get it in, if left in his own possession, he is no loser: if the Government having got possession of his wilderness, can, by means of a sound and vigorous system of colonization, sell the land faster than he could, he is a gainer. I should propose, therefore, to pay the proprietor by debentures in a land stock, of which the total amount should consist of as many pounds as there would be in the total estimated value of the property resumed; and of which each proprietor's share should be of the amount at which his own lands were estimated. On these debentures I would pay no interest, because I see no justice in a claim for interest where the property taken brings in no income. But as the Government sold the land, it should pay each purchaser a dividend, until the whole stock was paid off. Thus, suppose there to be 14,000,000 of acres of surveyed and appropriated but wild land in Upper Canada; and that the value of this were to be taken at 4,000,000l.—I have really no reason for fixing this value, but take it quite arbitrarily, because I must take some number—I would create a stock of 4,000,000. Suppose one proprietor has 10,000 acres valued at 1l. a-piece; another also 10,000 acres estimated at 2s. a-piece. The first should have 10,000l. of the stock, the latter 1,000l. Neither should receive interest; but, supposing 100,000l. to be got in the year by land sales, over end above prior charges on the proceeds, I would apply this sum to pay off the stock, which I should thus reduce 2½ per cent., and the first proprietor would get 250l. and the latter 25l. If the land sales produced an applicable fund of 1,000,000l., a quarter of the whole stock would be paid off, and the first proprietor, would get 2,500l., and the second 250l. My argument to recommend this to the proprietors would be very simple. I should say to them, that by this arrangement they would get as much as they can ever expect under the present system to get for their estates; that in the hands of the Government, vigorously employing itself to give a value to those lands by a sound system of disposing of them, and by a large measure of colonization, the whole price would be much sooner got than it could be realized by the absentee proprietors; and that whereas they now get no annual return, each proprietor would, in proportion to the Government sales, and without any exertion on his own part, get an annual instalment of greater or less amount. I should further remind them, that, at any rate, by this arrangement they would secure themselves the original purchase money of their land, and something more, if the present value was greater than the original cost; and that if things are left as they are, they will infallibly, according to the general practice of North America and the received notions of public justice current there, be subjected to a wild land tax, imposed either by general or by municipal authority, which more or less rapidly takes their estates from them without any compensation at all. The arrangement, therefore, is one which must be advantageous to them. The advantage to the public would be, that the Government would thus get the whole of the granted wild lands into its hands; and might establish a plan for giving an increased value to them and its other lands by a sound system of disposing of them, subject to no obstruction from private competition, and by applying the surplus proceeds to promote extensive colonization. I would do this by reverting to the precise recommendations of my report to Lord Durham. I did not, or rather Mr. Wakefield did not, therein, by any means insist on applying the proceeds of the land-sales to defraying the passage of emigrants. I am rather surprised to find Lord Sydenham, in one of the letters recently published, arguing against the application of Mr. Wakefield's views to the colonization of Canada, on the ground that it is not to be effected by selling land at a high price, in order to get the means of carrying out emigrants. In that report, which contains Mr. Wakefield's own deliberate application of his principles to Canada, it is not proposed to set a high price on land; nor is it proposed to apply the proceeds in the first place to emigration. The means are varied to attain the great end of colonization. In new colonies, especially in those of Australia, the great difficulty of colonization is the carrying out the emigrant to the colony; and this is the expense which it is of most urgent necessity to defray by the proceeds of your land sales. The people will not, cannot get out without; and the getting them to the colony is the first necessity. But with respect to Canada the case is exactly the reverse. There, as we see, the means of getting across the ocean are within the reach of a vast number of the poorest of the population, not only of Great Britain but also of Ireland. Without any aid except that which friends, which parishes, and which liberal landlords have been in the habit of giving, a vast influx of labourers and their families has taken place. I should propose that, in the first place, at least we should leave emigration to be carried on independent of the Government; and I should suggest, as my report does, that the primary object, to which the proceeds of the land-sales should be devoted, should be the opening up the interior of the country by roads, bridges, and other public works, so as to render it accessible; and to the building churches, schools, and other public buildings, which should render it really habitable by a civilized community. By the great public works now in progress, we shall establish those great lines of communication which are destined to make Montreal and Quebec the out ports of the vast country which lies on both sides of the great lakes. But, at present, this will be effected by facilitating communication with the far west of the United States, and the transmission of its produce through Canada. If you wish to render the great mass of our own territory available for feeding this main stream, and making it the highway for bringing into the market Canadian produce raised by our own people, the system of communications must be completed by extending to each separate portion of the province its own system of minor internal communications, and rendering each not only accessible, but habitable. For really the great obstacle to the settlement of capitalists, great or small, in Canada is the desolation and discomfort of the life that awaits them. Tempted by the prospect of getting a large quantity of land, they embark their fortunes in a purchase; they find that their lot is cast in a wilderness, and that their life is to be one of solitude and hardship; they are cut off from their kind, and can neither enjoy life nor lay the foundation of wealth; even the observances of a common worship are often denied them, and they see their children grow up without the possibility of educating them. The single settler who finds himself in this position can do nothing to remedy it; but a Government, that really took up colonization in earnest and on system, would provide against such monstrous evils by a few roads, a few churches, and a few schools, which would, at a small expense, provide in every district for the comfort of large numbers. It would lay open various districts by roads made before hand; and concentrate settlements round churches, schools, and markets previously established. These provisions for the comfort and well-being of a civilized community would tempt the capitalist to resort to what would then be no desert; and they would enable you to plant your labourers in districts already prepared for settlement. The construction of such works would in another way facilitate the emigration of poor labourers, by affording them a certain means of getting employment on their arrival in the colony. Government, if conducting the whole operation on a combined plan, would do right in employing emigrants in preference to other persons on their works; and would direct them thither on their arrival. As the labours of these men opened up the country, capitalists would be induced to purchase and settle, and would employ another portion of the labouring emigrants. These labourers, either in the public or in private employment, would be sure, in course of time, to accumulate sufficient savings out of their wages, to enable them to purchase and stock small farms; they would then not only make way for a fresh supply of labouring emigrants, but would create a fresh demand for labour. This is the sure result of a sound system of colonization; the more labour and capital that are supplied to a colony, the larger is the field laid open for additional capital and labour; and the means of employing both go on continually augmenting in geometrical progression, while there remains any waste lands to be reclaimed. Of course, it cannot be supposed that I mean any extensive improvement of the country to be effected, merely by the actual produce of the land sales of the first years of applying this system. I contemplate, as was proposed in my report, anticipating that produce by a loan. The payment of the interest, and then of the principal of the interest, and then of the principal of that loan, would be the first charges on the purchase-money of the land. But I should propose that this House should guarantee the payment of the interest; and this, not because I believe that it would ever be called upon actually to pay, but because such a guarantee would admit of the money being raised at a very low rate of interest. Sir, even if this country should actually have to take the debt upon itself, and pay the interest for ever, I would not scruple, considering the object to be attained, to propose our taking the burthen upon ourselves. Suppose that a loan of two millions should be raised at 4 per cent., which would amount to an annual charge of 75.000l., and that by means of the system thus established we could, as I feel very confident we should, double the present annual amount of emigration to Canada, who would refuse to pay 75.000l. a-year, in order to enable 40,000 more of our countrymen to emigrate every year? It would be carrying on emigration at the rate, after all, of only 2l. a head. And if these 40,000 emigrants were landed in Canada, and, from paupers fed by our bounty, became customers demanding and paying for our goods, the cost incurred on their account would be paid over and over again by the mere addition to our revenue which would result from the increase in our trade which they must create. But I lay this down merely as a position, which I should not scruple to defend, if driven to it. I have not the slightest fear of the produce of the land sales proving insufficient for the discharge of every claim upon it. It is a question whether the Government, by taking the waste lands of the province into its hands, by disposing of them on an uniform and sound principle, and by rendering them accessible and habitable by means of the expenditure of a loan raised on the security of future land sales, would so augment the value of its lands as to obtain from the sale of them the means of repaying the original purchase-money without interest, and the necessary loan with interest. It is impossible to make any calculations near enough to the truth ever to render it worth our while to discuss them hypothetically. It is impossible ever to approximate to the actual value of the wild lands, for which stock would have to be created. What loan would be requisite, at what times, and how much at a time it would have to be raised; and, consequently, what annual amount of interest would be payable each year; and, on the other hand, what amount of lands would be sold every year, and at what price: all these are points, of which some kind of estimate must be given in order to found any calculation of the results, and of which I see no ground for giving any plausible estimate. I will not, therefore, Sir, give any estimate, after the usual fashion of projectors, by gravely working out with arithmetical accuracy, the most precise results from perfectly hypothetical premises. I would rather trust to very general reasoning for leading us to general conclusions. Imagine to yourselves the contrast between a property situated in the midst of the forest, without a passable road to connect it with your neighbours or with your market during half the year; and then the same property, with no change made in its condition but that of a village near it, and good roads connecting it with the neighbouring properties and town; and tell me whether you think it would be at all extravagant to say, that the property would be tripled in value by that single change? Nay, as I am sure that your imaginations will give you but a feeble conception of the importance of more roads to the Canadian settler, I would beg you to look to an extract given in the 85th page of Lord Durham's "Report," from the evidence of the chief agent for emigrants in Upper Canada, who states that in 1834 he himself met a settler from the township of Warwick, who was returning from a grist mill at. Westminster, about forty-five miles distant from his home, whither he had been compelled to carry thirteen bushels of wheat to get them ground.— He had a yoke of oxen and a horse attached to his waggon; had been absent nine days, and did not expect to reach home till the following evening. Light as his load was, he assured me that he had to unload wholly or in part several times; and that after driving his waggon through the swamps, to pick out a road through the woods, where the swamps and gallies were fordable, and to carry the bags on his back, and to replace them in the waggon. The witness then goes on to calculate that it would have been cheaper to send the wheat from Toronto across the Atlantic to be ground at Liverpool and brought back, than it must have been to get it thus ground. Neighbours, a mill in the next village, and a decent road, would have enabled this poor man to do in an hour what it cost him, his horse, and his oxen, ten days to do for thirteen bushels of wheat. This is, no doubt, an extreme case; but it is but an extreme case of a great class of difficulties, destroying the comfort of the settlers, and obstructing the settlement of Canada. It is but a sample of the mischief resulting from the want of roads. Judge then for yourselves, what increased value mere roads would give to the lands of Canada. Is it extravagant to count on that increase, and on the impulse given to the settlement of the colony and to the sale of your land, being such as to insure your paying off the entire debt contracted both for the acquisition and for the improvement of the lands in a few years? But even if it could be supposed that the sale of these lands alone would not suffice, more than suffice, to repay the debt, recollect that the Crown has, in addition to all their surveyed lands, a vast reserve of unsurveyed territory of its own—valueless, it is true, until the surveyed lands be settled, but to which their mere settlement would give a value, and which would always furnish a large additional security for any debt contracted for the improvement of the colony. You have indeed an ample property which would well repay any outlay that might now be required to render it available to your people. All that is needed is the mere will to turn it to account, and method and some system in doing so. As to the machinery for carrying the plan into operation, my report to Lord Durham suggested a commission. I will not now, however, enter into this question further than to say that, as in any scheme of colonization you have to further the interest of two parties, of the mother country and of the colony, it is necessary that the machinery for the purpose should consist partly of an establishment here, and partly of an establishment in the colony. The establishment in the colony it would be better to leave to the experience of the Colonial Legislature to suggest. The additions which it would be necessary to make to the existing commission in this country, for the purpose of enabling it to superintend the administration of the system in Canada, may be left to be considered when the constitution of our present emigrant department comes altogether before the House. For I will take this opportunity of saying, that I think the first requisite for a good system of colonization is to have what Mr. Carlyle calls an effective emigration service; and the first practical step, which I would propose to take next Session, would be to put the present land emigration commission on a footing proportioned to the magnitude and importance of the task assigned to it. As for the details, by which the Canadian scheme would have to be carried out, these also had better be left to the Colonial Legislature and Executive to suggest, There will be not a little difficulty in devising and carrying out such a scheme; and there will be no little risk of its being thwarted by blundering, and still more by jobbing. Of course there will. What good did ever Government undertake to do for the people that cost no pains and was attended with no risk of failure or even of mischief? If we are to be scared from every enterprise of public good by the aspect of difficulty and risk, we must give up every duty of Government. The only question here with respect to every other suggestion of public improvement is whether the object be worth the pains taking necessary for mastering difficulties and preventing jobbing. The object here is to render the nearest of our colonies productive to our people of all the various benefits which sound and extensive colonization may be made to produce. It is, in fact, nothing else than the recolonization of Canada. This is surely worth an effort, and the means which I propose are surely worth that consideration which I am confident they will meet with in the colony, and worth all that which I ask from the Government; namely, that during the recess they will co-operate with the Legislature of Canada in devising a plan for the effectual colonization of that great province. Here, Sir, I should close my present remarks, were it not for the necessity of not omitting from my suggestion of Canadian colonization some reference to the wants and interests of the French portion of the population of Canada. It seems to me that no plan of colonization from Canada can be complete that does not include some provision for enabling the French population to extend itself beyond the limits of its present territory. By the plan adopted on the original occupation of the Canadas the French laws and institutions were confined to the existing seigneuries, and all the rest of the whole province was formed into townships in which the law of England was established. The growth of the French Canadian population since the period of the conquest has been the most rapid ever witnessed in any race not recruited by emigration. In less than eighty years they had multiplied sevenfold. Though the unoccupied land of the seigneuries was sufficient for the reception of a great addition to the original population, such an increase as this exceeded its capabilities. It is but too well ascertained that the increase of produce has not kept pace with the increase of population. The lands which formerly supplied not only the consumption of Canada, but also a large export of grain, are now worn out. Complaints of distress, says Lord Durham's report, are constant, and the deterioration of the condition of a great part of the population admitted on all hands. In fact, Lower Canada exhibits but too many of those signs of the pressure of population in a restricted field of employment, from which we are accustomed to regard the New World as exempted. That the population has not spread out and cleared the surrounding forest is attributable to no want of inclination or energy on their own part. But the French Canadian wishes to carry his own laws and institutions with him: he will not move save under the guidance of his priest. This our law prevented his doing; for the instant that he passed the limits of the seigneuries no provision was made for his church; and he was subjected to a strange code of laws which he regarded with aversion. Many attempts were made to pass these barriers. When I was in Canada a project was mooted, though in no practical shape, for settling the upper valley of the Sangueray and the country round Lake of St. John's, which had been surveyed by orders of the Assembly, and found to possess advantages of soil that rendered it more productive and habitable than a considerable portion of the country more to the southward. It was useless during the war for us to entertain any proposal for extending the domain of the French law and race, nor has anything been done for this purpose since the restoration of constitutional government. But surely now it would be right to take this up once more, and if the French race has outgrown the limits which, not natural but merely legislative landmarks assigned to it, surely it is our business to provide for such an extension of their institutions as is necessary for enabling them to live and multiply in comfort. Thus much, while we are making provision for the extension of our own race in Canada, and for relieving ourselves from the pressure of population—thus much at least we are bound to do to guard these, the ancient European occupants of Canada, from the evil of being pent up in a restricted angle of what was once their undivided patrimony. I must say that I think we owe the French Canadians much consideration—much for long obedience and affectionate loyalty—much for all the mischiefs brought on them by an insurrection which, if precipitated by their own misconduct, had its foundation in our continued obstinate and gross misgovernment—and much for their ready and sincere return to better feelings on the first exhibition of an intention to govern them with fairness and kindness. This, indeed, has astonished those who even most highly estimated the gentleness and simplicity of their character. The only passage in Lord Durham's report, which subsequent events have at all shown to be founded in error, is that in which he deplores the impossibility of ever reconciling the existing generation of French Canadians to the British Government. The mistake shows that highly as he has rated the amiable qualities of that people, he underrated their forgiving disposition, and that he has also underrated the efficacy of those great measures of conciliation which he recommended, and by carrying which into effect, Sir Charles Bagot has for ever endeared his memory to the people of Canada. I will now trouble you no longer at present. The general subject of the means of rendering our colonies at large available to our people by a systematic colonization, I shall bring before this House at an early period of next Session unless indeed the general feeling in the country, and their own sense of the necessity of availing themselves of every remedy for the increasing distress of the country, shall induce her Majesty's Government to anticipate me by themselves proposing practical measures, which they can frame with so much more chance of success. At present I shall content myself with laying these views before you, and moving an address for a copy of the act passed by the province of Canada in the 5th year of her Majesty, intituled" An Act for the disposal of public lands."

Mr. G. W. Hope

regretted that his noble Friend the Secretary for the Colonies was not present on this occasion; but he believed that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was aware that the noble Lord's absence was occasioned by no disrespect for himself, or of the subject which he had so ably brought before the House. Of course, in the absence of his noble Friend, he could not meet, with any decided expressions of opinion, the plan which the hon. and learned Gentleman had proposed in the course of his speech. There were one or two points, however, in the hon. Gentleman's speech upon which he felt it necessary to make a few brief observations. He could assure the hon. Gentleman at the outset, that it was not from any want of will, but from want of powers, that more had not been done by her Majesty's Government in the cause of emigration. In consequence of one observation, however, which had fallen from the hon. and learned Gentleman, he wished to guard himself against assenting to the proposition that the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government was pledged to consider any measure of this kind. With respect to the sale of lands in Canada, he would not defend the system which was pursued in this matter, but he thought that the motive imputed by the hon. and learned Gentleman to those engaged in these transactions had in some degree been coloured by his ready powers of caricature. He must certainly protest against the sweeping condemnation of the land commission in which the hon. and learned Gentleman had indulged upon the subject of Prince Edward's Island, although he thought that the hon. and learned Gentleman had been a little misled. In justice to the proprietors of that island, he felt bound to say that from all the information which he had on the subject, he thought that so far from their having any wish to prevent improvement, the greatest pains had been taken by them in furtherance of such improvements; indeed, if he had been aware, that a subject of such importance was about to have been brought before the House, he could have brought down documents which would have proved that the increase of productiveness and of the progress of general improvement in the island had been very remarkable. Undoubtedly there was some misunderstandings existing between landlord and tenant, which arose believed from the fact that the inhabitants of that place had but a very imperfect notion of the law relating to landlord and tenant. With regard to the comparison which the hon. and learned Gentleman had made between the state of Canada and of the United States, and the opinion which he had cited from Mr. Buckingham on the subject;—he could not at the moment go into details on the subject; particularly as to the price of land, but could only say that he would cite the authority of Mr. Murray, a gentleman who had recently travelled in that part of the world, which was decidedly in favour of Canada. With respect to the re-emigration which the hon. and learned Gentleman described as taking place from Canada to the United States, he believed that he could satisfactorily explain the state of the case upon that point. The fact was that in consequence of the cheapness of passage by Canada that route was taken by great numbers of persons; and thus many people crossed the frontiers of Canada, not for the purpose of remaining there, but on their way to other parts. This explained the apparent difference between the number of persons who went from the United States to Canada, and that of those who went from Canada to the United States. Temporary circumstances also accounted to a very considerable extent for these differences. For instance, some years back there was a great deal of speculation, and a great number of public works going on in the United States, and the consequence was that a great number of persons went there from Canada for the purpose of seeking employment. Now, however, the case was reversed; the preponderance of public works was in favour of Canada, and this led, for the moment, to a great influx of hands from the United States. In short, he believed, that the preponderance of emigration between the United Sates and Canada was now in favour of the latter. At the same time, however, it must not be at all supposed that at the present moment Canada offered that ready and advantageous field for labour which seemed generally to be supposed. He held in his hand two returns, one of which arrived by the previous mail, and the other by the mail which arrived last night. The first of these, dated the 17th of June, contained a report from the commissioners of emigration; who stated that— They regretted to learn, by accounts from the west, that the demand for labour at present was very slack—that several people, unable to find employment, had gone to their homes, and that many more would do so but that they had not the means. The report which he had received today, and which was dated Quebec, 1st of July, stated that— Employment was very scarce; that wages were very low, only 2s. a-day, whilst many hands were to be got at 1s. 8d. or 1s. 10d. The price of farming stock was so low that they could not pay higher wages. It, was therefore, considered fortunate that there had been a decrease of emigration during the last year. The report added that— Carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, and handicraftsmen of all denominations found equal difficulty in obtaining employment. He thought it important that these statements should get abroad, as much misapprehension had existed upon the subject. The falling off in emigration of late years was very remarkable. In 1842 the number of emigrants was 35,000, whilst in 1843 it was 13,500. The hon. and learned Gentleman had referred to the complaint against the wild land tax, and proposed to do away with it by imposing another tax in its stead. With respect to the tax itself, however, he would observe that the proceeds of it were employed on public works of utility, and that the amount of it was not exorbitant, it being limited to 1½d. an acre in Upper Canada; and though in some cases it had been pressed rather severely, he did not think such an amount of hardship had resulted from it as the hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to describe. With respect to the plan proposed by the hon. Gentleman for the purchase of lands from private individuals by the Crown, for which payment was to be made by a species of scrip, such a plan must not originate with this House but with the legislature of Canada. His hon. and learned Friend referring to the question of emigration to Canada, though he had refused to touch upon the most important point—the means of promoting it. He had said that Sir C. Bagot had only given effect to Lord Durham's recommendations. But it should be remembered that Lord Durham's recom- mendation was to denationalize the French Canadians. He should only state in conclusion, that her Majesty's Government were by no means indisposed to entertain any practicable proposal for promoting emigration by means of the sale of the lands of Canada. Amongst the blue books which his hon. and learned Friend referred to, he had omitted one which was presented on the 29th of May, in which there was a despatch of Sir C. Metcalf, stating that the land and emigration commissioners had recommeded that a portion of the proceeds of the lands should be devoted to the introduction of emigrants. It was true, that the same book stated, as a matter of fact, that the Legislature did not entertain the proposion; but the notice of the subject showed that there was every disposition on the part of the Government to give effect to practical recommendations to attain the object the hon. and learned Gentleman had in view.

Mr. C. Buller

The assurance given on the part of the Government was all he expected, namely, that they would turn their attention to the practicability of co-operating with the legislature of Canada, with the view of making the lands available for the purposes of emigration. He knew very well that nothing could be done unless the colonial legislature were a principal party in effecting that purpose. He owed an apology to the House for having brought this subject on in the absence of the noble Lord the Secretary of the Colonies, who he knew was unable to attend from unavoidable causes. He could not but say before he sat down, that there was one remark of his hon. Friend which he thought might have been better omitted. His hon. Friend said that Lord Durham proposed to denationalize the French Canadians. Lord Durham proposed no such thing. He proposed to silence the empty and absurd pretensions of nationality advanced by some injudicious friends of the French Canadians; but he said that the real way to do it was to have such an union of the provinces as would prevent the French from ruling by the force of a mere majority, and at the same time reconcile them to our Government by securing to them the advantages of a representative and responsible Government. He was convinced that what had occurred in Canada would have been most satisfactory to Lord Durham had he lived. He was perfectly willing to say, however, that honour was due to Sir Charles Bagot for carrying into effect the main recommendation of the report of Lord Durham, and establishing a representative Government with an executive in harmony with the majority.

Mr. Hope

trusted the hon. and learned Gentleman would furnish his recommendations in writing, as by so doing it would facilitate their consideration.

Mr. Hindley

expressed his surprise that so important a question should not have attracted a larger House. There were millions of capital in this country that could not find employment, and abroad we had millions of acres requiring cultivation. He asked why, if corn were not allowed to be brought to this country, the people should not be enabled to go where they might get corn? He thought no time should be lost in adopting an extensive system of colonization. He was sure that if it were not for the repudiation system adopted in America, the surplus capital of this country would have gone there before this.

Motion agreed to.