Murdoch to Rogers (Permanent Under-Secretary)

I have to acknowledge your Letter of the 28th ultimo, enclosing a
Despatch from the Governor of Vancouver's Island, with an Address to
Her Majesty from the House of Assembly, and a Report from the
Legislative Council on the price of Crown Land in that Colony.

2. The House of Assembly represent that the high price of Land in
Vancouver's Island, has driven Settlers to the neighbouring territory
of the United States; and they therefore pray that the price may be
reduced from one pound (£1) an acre to Four shillings and two pence
(4s/2d). The Legislative Council recommend that the price should
be reduced as suggested; but that to prevent Land jobbing, conditions
of occupation and improvement should be imposed. They also express
their approval of the pre-emptive system, provided the Land be so
selected as not to leave out rocks, swamps &c, and that the quantity
pre-empted do[es] not exceed 160 acres. They add, however, that they
are averse to tying up all the Crown Lands on the pre-emptive system; but
that Capitalists should be enabled to procure extensive quantities of
Land "when required for a laudable purpose". The Governor recommends
the petition of the Assembly to favorable consideration—as necessary
to put the Colony on something like an equal footing with the
neighbouring territory—and proposes to guard against Land
speculation, the probability of which he foresees, by imposing
settlement duties. He states that under the similar system in force
in Canada, speculation is said to be unknown and impossible.

3. In respect to the price of Land there can be little doubt that
while in the adjoining territory of the Union, land may be purchased
at $1 1/4, there is no chance of being able to sell it in
Vancouver's Island at 20s/- an acre. It was intended, I
understood, as soon as the negociations with the Hudson's Bay Company
were sufficiently matured, to authorize the Governor to sell Land at
10s/- an acre, that being the price established in British
Columbia. But we have always felt much doubt at this Board, whether
10s/- an acre, though originally suggested by Governor Douglas, was
not too high with reference to the price in the adjoining territory.
I am not, therefore, prepared to dissuade a compliance with the
prayer of the Assembly, and the recommendation of the Governor and
Legislative Council that the price should be reduced to 4s/2d an
acre.

4. But then arises the serious question to which Governor Douglas
and the Legislative Council have adverted, how to prevent land
jobbing by persons who purchase without the intention of occupying or
improving. Governor Douglas proposes settlement duties, and appeals
to Canada as proving the efficacy of that condition. I have no
information as to the present working of the Land Regulations in
Canada; but there is no Country in which it is notorious that the
system of settlement duties more utterly failed in former years than
in Canada. In the years immediately after the conquest, and still
more after the peace of 1783, it was the practice to make Grants of
Land in that Country to persons possessed of Capital, on condition of
the performance of settlement duties, and to ensure the fulfilment of
the condition, the deed of grant was with-held till a Certificate had
been produced of the execution of the stipulated work. Under this
system immense tracts gradually came into the hands of individuals
who had neither the intention nor the means of improving them—but
who bought them solely with a view to resale at a future time. The
existence of these unimproved but appropriated tracts of Land, was a
serious obstruction to the progress of the Country, and an
intolerable 1783, nuisance to the neighbouring Settlers.

5. It may, however, be said that this arose from an imperfect
working of the system—not from inherent defect in the system itself.
I do not, however, believe that any precautions which the Government
could take, would in the case of an extensive Colony, ensure an
efficient working of the system. In Canada, it was notorious that
the Certificates necessary to obtain a Grant of Land were obtained on
the loosest evidence—and often on no evidence at all—and that they
were even to be procured in Montreal or Quebec from persons who had
never seen the Land about which they certified. Nothing like this
would probably occur 1783, in the first instance on Vancouver's Island—but
it is the tendency of all such Regulations to grow gradually laxer in
their application, till at last they become a mere delusion. If with
a view to ensure greater strictness, it were made the duty of the
Crown Land Office to ascertain by actual inspection the performance
of the settlement duties, the expense of the necessary Establishment
would in the course of a few years become intolerable.

6. But even if fraud or neglect could be guarded against settlement
duties would in practice be of little use. From the nature of the
case they must be of a description to be executed within a 1783, short
period, and at no great expense—otherwise they would discourage
purchasers more than a high price. But if so they would not deter a
Captialist who was willing to lock up a sum of money in Land on the
chances of reselling the Land at a future day at three or four times
its first cost—while they would in reality be of no practical value
to the Colony. In a new Country, the clearance or breaking up of
Land, or the opening of a Road, or the building of a Hut, which are
the readiest description of settlement duties, make but a momentary
impression, and if not subsequently attended to, are obliterated by
the vegetation of a year or two. But when once these or any other
prescribed Settlement duties, had been performed, the purchaser would
be entitled to claim a Grant of the Land—and to leave it untouched
for any length of time. Nor must it be forgotten that the rapidity
with which the tracks of cultivation are obliterated in new
Countries, adds incalculably to the difficulty of ascertaining whether
settlement duties have been properly performed or not.

7. The only real protection against excessive acquisitons of Land
for speculative purposes, is, I believe, to be found either in a high
price or in an Annual Tax. The latter is the best, because acting
continuously, it provides an ever constant motive against allowing
the Land to lie idle which a price paid once for all, however high,
will not do to the same extent. And in this probably is to be found
an explanation of the alleged absence of speculative purchases in
Canada. I believe that in that Colony the Municipal Councils have the
power of taxing the Land within their respective Districts for local
purposes, and that this power has been generally exercised by them.
It would clearly not be the interest of a speculator to buy land thus
situated upon the chance of reselling it at some future period at an
enhanced price, but with the certainty in the meantime of having to
pay an annual Tax in proportion to its extent.

8. But the circumstances of Vancouver's Island and Canada, are so
different, that a system which is found to work easily and
efficiently in the one may be quite impracticable in the other. And
this I fear would be the case with regard to a Land Tax. In Canada
where the population is thick, the interest which the Taxpayers have
in the application of the Tax, ensures its imposition and collection.
But in Vancouver's Island, where the population is too sparse for
Municipalities, the Tax could only be imposed and collected by the
government, which would have only a remote interest in the
matter, and is always less able to enforce an obnoxious payment than
a Municipal Body. It will be for Governor Douglas to consider
whether this difficulty can be overcome—and if so whether his
Legislature would pass an Act imposing such a Tax as the condition of
a reduction in the price of Land. The Tax, if imposed should be the
same on all Country Lands whether cultivated or wild, and of such
amount as to be inappreciable on cultivated Land, although a burthen
on wild Land. Probably -/1d or -/2d an acre would be sufficient.
It would be desirable also that the proceeds of any such Tax should
be expended in Public Works of immediate benefit to those who pay
it—such as opening Roads, building bridges, improving navigable
Rivers &c. The individual settlers would in this way receive more
than the worth of their respective Contributions to the Tax and might
possibly become reconciled to payments which, against their
resistance, the Government would have great difficulty in enforcing.

9. In regard to pre-emptive rights, the Duke of Newcastle, in the
case of British Columbia, has sanctioned provisionally the occupation
of Land before survey,

*

to avoid the discouragement which delay might
cause to intending Settlers. The same reason would justify the
introduction of the same system in Vancouver's Island. But Governor Douglas should observe in the latter all the Regulations which have
been established in British Columbia to facilitate the future
adjustment of pre-emptive lots into the general survey, and to reduce
as much as possible the risk of future conflicting claims to the same
Land, which is the great danger of the system of pre-emption. The
regulations for British Columbia are contained in a Proclamation of
4th January last, forwarded in Governor Douglas' Despatch of 12th
January to which we suggested some additions in a Report dated 31st
March last.

10. In conclusion I may remark, with reference to the suggestion of
the Legislative Council that Capitalists should be enabled to procure
extensive tracts of Land when required for a laudable purpose, that
it would be extremely inconvenient to lay down any principle of this
description. If the Governor were invested with a discretion to
relax the ordinary Land Regulations in what should appear to him
exceptional cases, he would be continually exposed to applications to
do so. Those who failed in their applications would denounce all the
successful cases as jobs—and impugn the impartiality, perhaps the
good faith of the Governor. It seems to me indispensable that
whatever Land Regulations may be established should be of uniform
operation—or, if exceptions are inevitable that they should be
strictly defined, and placed, if possible, beyond the discretion of
the Local Authorities.