No. 16

I have the honor of transmitting to Your Grace a Petition from the
House of Assembly of Vancouver's Island to the Queen, praying that
Her Majesty will be pleased to direct that the price of Crown Lands
in this Colony may be reduced, and that Four Shillings and two pence
per Statute acre be the maximum price at which such lands shall be
sold.

2. It does not appear necessary that I should enter into an
examination of the merits of the several systems regulating the
disposal of public land in Her Majesty's Colonial possessions, as the
subject has been so fully examined, as hardly to admit of further
useful investigation. I could therefore, with a limited knowledge of
the practical workings of those systems, scarcely hope to throw light
upon so wide and admittedly difficult a subject.

3. I may nevertheless be pardoned for remarking that there are
circumstances arising out of the contiguity of the United States
Territories which forcibly suggest the necessity for legislation of a
peculiarly liberal character in disposing of the public land of this
Colony, with a view of rendering it attractive to emigrants; and of
counteracting the allurements held out by the Donation Act, and the
General Pre-emption Law of the United States; the former securing to
the actual settler in Oregon and Washington Territory, a free grant
of public land, varying in Extent from 320 to 640 Acres; and the
latter allowing to every American Citizen the privilege of occupying
and preserving free of competition for a limited time, a section of
public land, varying in extent from 160 acres for single, and 320
acres for married persons, with the right of purchase at the minimum
Government price of one and a quarter dollars per acre.

4. The Donation Act being intended to encourage emigration in the
early stages of those Territories, was to continue in force for a
limited time, but the Pre-emption law is, I am informed, of perpetual
application.

5. Neither the soil nor the climate of Vancouver's Island have any
superiority over that of the United States Territory, and the
contrast will, at least for the present, appear unfavourable, if the
Comparison be Extended to the relative commercial advantages of the
two countries.

6. In those respects, it must be admitted that Vancouvers Island has
no advantage over the Territories of the United States; and thus I am
led to Entertain a doubt whether any scheme of colonization can be
successfully worked out here, unless the public land be greatly
reduced in price, or in fact lowered to the same Standard as in
Washington Territory.

7. It being evident that Population is the great want of this
Colony—if it is believed the want can be supplied through the
reduction proposed by the House of Assembly, I should strongly
advocate the prayer of their petition; for in that case the loss of
revenue necessarily caused by the depreciation in the price of land,
would be repaid by the acquisiton of a population producing a
permanent revenue for the Colony.

8. In carrying out the view of the House of Assembly with respect to
the proposed reduction in the sale price of the Crown Lands, it is on
the other hand to be feared unless conditions of settlement are
imposed, that large tracts may be purchased, not with a view of
improving the land, but on speculation of profitable resale, when
they have been rendered valuable by the labors of others in the same
locality; and it is evident that if scope be allowed for such
operations they will prove obstructive to settlement, and highly
detrimental to the Colony.

9. Under the new plan of disposing of the Crown Lands in Canada,
speculation is said to be unknown and impossible, though the maximum
price fixed by law is only 75 cents in Cash, or $1 dollar per acre on
credit, payable, one fifth at the time of purchase, and the remaining
four-fifths in four equal annual instalments; in either case, the
land being also subject to settlement duties.

10. Public feeling in this Colony is strongly in favor of the prayer
contained in the Assembly's Petition, to which, provided the House of
Assembly supply from other sources a revenue for defraying the
regular expenses of Government, I see no other serious objection than
the one I have here stated, and that may be obviated without impeding
the useful and legitimate operations of Capital.

11. I would therefore Earnestly recommend the petition to Your
Grace's favourable Consideration.