Mr. Myers’ books are recommended only to admirers of the muck-raking school, because only they believe that the masses are poor because of unwillingness to imitate the vices attributed to the rich. That doctrine is the root of much envy, hatred, and uncharitableness, and it is noxious rather than meritorious in its effects. This is said without disparagement of the apparent effort of Mr. Myers to be accurate. His facts are not denied, but his inferences from them will not be admitted generally. All he says may be true, and yet there are other offsetting facts which compensate for the blemishes disclosed.

New York Times, 5 July 1914.


http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/m ... index.html



A HISTORY OF CANADIAN WEALTH

CHAPTER VI


(A snip from one of his sections)

THE LANDED PROPRIETORS


During this period Canada was dominated by what was popularly called the “Family Compact,”— a term that might be supposed to describe a clique joined and interjoined by ties of family relationships. Lord Durham, however, did not find the term a very appropriate one, considering that there was very little of family connection among the officials, functionaries and other individuals thus united.

Composition of “The Family Compact”

“ For a long time,” Lord Durham reported, “ this body of men, receiving at times accessions to its numbers, possessed almost all the highest public offices, by means of which, and of its influence in the Executive Council, it wielded all the powers of Government. . . . Successive Governors, as they came in their turn, are said to have submitted quietly to its influence, or, after a short and unavailing struggle, to have yielded to this well-organized party the real conduct of affairs.

“ The bench, the magistracy, the high offices of the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal profession, are filled by the adherents of this party : by grant or purchase, they have acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the Province ; they are all-powerful in the chartered banks, and till lately, shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust and profit. The bulk of this party consists, for the most part, of native-born inhabitants of the colony, or of emigrants who settled in it before the last war with the United States ; the principal members of it belong to the Church of England, and the maintenance of the claims of that Church has always been one of its most distinguishing characteristics.”1

“ The Family Compact ” in Nova Scotia, however, seems to have been, as it were, much in the family. Two family connections comprehended five of the members of the Executive Council of that Province ; and until almost 1837, when two of them retired from the firm, five were co-partners in one banking house.2

Lavish Distribution of Land in Ontario


The granting of vast acres of land to ecclesiastics was only one of sundry effective ways of giving away territory. Another of the methods was granting lands for so-called “ public services ”— a form that in both Quebec and Ontario, Lord Durham reported, had been carried on with reckless prodigality, in violation of instructions from the Secretary of State.3

In Upper Canada 3,200,000 acres had been given to what were called “ United Empire Loyalists ” or to their children ; these loyalists were refugees from the United States who had settled in Ontario before 1787. Many of their descendants, it may be here commented, are today living in affluence upon the increment of the land then given, especially in Toronto. To militiamen, 730,000 acres were given. Discharged soldiers and sailors received 450,000 acres. Grants totaling 255,000 acres were distributed among magistrates and barristers. To executive councillors and their families 136,000 acres were donated.

Five legislative councillors and their families received 50,000 acres. To a handful of powerful clergymen, 36,900 acres were given as their personal private property. Titles to a lump of 264,000 acres were handed over to persons contracting to make surveys. Certain officers of the army and navy received 92,526 acres. For the endowment of schools, 50,000 acres were set aside.4

To one individual, Col. Talbot, 48,520 acres were given ; to the heirs of General Brock, 12,000 acres, and another 12,000 acres were presented to Dr. Mountain, formerly Anglican Bishop of Quebec.5

Added to the clergy reserves, these land grants, Lord Durham reported, comprised nearly half of all of the surveyed land in the Province.6


Enjoy!

   

Frauds in Obtaining Large Estates

Describing the secret machinery of the system, Langelier says that, “ A person wishing to thus take possession of a portion of the public domain, first came to an understanding with the members of the Executive Council and the persons occupying the highest positions, to secure their concurrence and that of the Governor. He afterwards came to an understanding with a certain number of individuals, picked up at hap-hazard, to get them to sign a petition to the Governor, praying for the granting of land he desired. To compensate them for this accommodating act on their part, he paid his associates a nominal sum, generally a guinea, in consideration of which they at once retransferred their share to him as soon as the letters patent were issued. Sometimes one or two of the associates kept a lot of l00 or 200 acres on a grant covering several thousands of acres, but this was the exception, not the general rule. For that purpose stationers sold blanks for such retransfers, which forms, as shown in 1821 before a committee of the Legislative Assembly, had been prepared and drafted by the Attorney General.

“These frauds were committed with the knowledge of the Executive Council, several of whose members used this means to obtain large grants of public lands. Prescott, one of the Governors of the time, wished to stop this waste of the public domain, but he brought down upon himself the hatred of the Executive Councillors, who, headed by judge Osgood, managed to obtain his recall. Sir Robert Shore Milnes, Prescott’s successor, showed himself better disposed towards the spoilers of the Crown domain, and to give them a tangible proof of his good intentions, he had a grant given to him of 48,061 acres in the townships of Compton, Stanstead and Barnston.”5



Fur Merchants Become Landed Proprietors

As the fur merchants controlling the North West Company controlled Milnes and the Executive Council, of which some were powerful members, they, of course, were foremost among the beneficiaries of land grants.

Simon McTavish received a grant, in 1802, of 11,550 acres in the township of Chester ; and in the same year, Governor Milnes presented to William M’Gillivray a grant Of 11,550 acres of land in the township of Inverness. In 1810 the Ellice family obtained a grant of 25,592 acres in Godmanchester, and another grant of 3,819 acres in Hinchinbrooke. Five years later, Governor Lord Drummond granted to Hon. John Richardson, 29,800 acres in Grantham, and 11,500 acres to Hon. Thomas Dunn in Stukeley. The Frobisher estate comprised 57,000 acres.6 Langelier says that after about 1806, the system of township associates fell into disuse, and that thereafter almost all of the large grants were made in the name of one individual or of a single family. Every person of eminence, prominence and political influence—which practically meant the all-dominating merchant class from which even the judges often came—rushed to share in the spoils. McGill’s possession comprised 38,000 acres ; Sir John Caldwell’s estate amounted to 35,000 acres. Judge Gale received 10,000 acres ; Judges Pyke and Desbarats, 24,000 acres ; Chief Justice Sewell, by purchase, 6,500 acres. But it is needless to enumerate further the long and tedious list of beneficiaries set forth in the records.7 Many of the surveys of these grants, as Commissioner Butler later reported to Lord Durham, were fraudulently made and enlarged.

“ These violations of the instructions of the Imperial Government which sequestered the best part of the public domain in favor of a few speculators,” adds Langelier, “were encouraged by the Imperial Government itself.” Thus, of his own accord, the Duke of Portland gave 48,062 acres to Sir Robert Shore Milnes, and 12,000 acres to each of the members of the Executive Council constituting the Land Commission which had given all the extravagant and scandalous concessions up to that date. Milnes abused his position “to enrich a handful of favorites” none of whom took “the slightest trouble to fulfill the conditions of settlement which were nevertheless in force” so far as the law went.8


Yes I guess the "elite" would like to paint Myers as a muck raker, but they can't dispute the facts he's writing about. Names, places, people, money...the who's who.

   

French Seigneurs Loose Their Hold



Probably Milnes considered himself a paragon of moderation in the granting of lands, since as early as 1800 he informed the Duke of Portland that there were 10,000,000 acres in Quebec at the disposal of the Government, and that these “ have actually been applied for.”9

In that long and instructive communication to the Duke of Portland, Lieutenant-Governor Milnes expressed great solicitude lest the power of the aristocracy should not be sustained. Any Constitution granted to Canada, he wrote, “ must rest upon a due proportion being maintained between the Aristocracy and the Lower Orders of the People, without which it will become a dangerous weapon in the hands of the latter.” He complained that “ several causes unite in daily lessening the Power and Influence of the Aristocratical Body in Lower Canada ” — the Province of Quebec. Among these causes he specified the indisposition of the French seigneurs “ to increase their Influence or improve their Fortunes by trade.” “ Hence,” he declared, the “ Canadian Gentry have nearly become extinct.”

Another cause, Milnes wrote, was the overshadowing influence of the Roman Catholic Church and the independence of the priests resting upon a sure and solid revenue-producing foundation.

“The Priests,” he wrote, “have (in tithes) a 26th of all the Grain, which may be valued at £25,000 or £26,000 a year, which alone must make their influence very considerable, and especially as the Religious Bodies are in possession of nearly One-Fourth of all the Seignorial Rights granted before the Conquest (excepting those of the Jesuit Estates lately taken into possession of the Crown, as will appear by the Inclosure) : there are 123 parishes and 120 Parish Priests.”10 Milnes justified the giving of land grants to Protestants on the ground that it would, in time, if judiciously done, “form in this Province a body of people of the Protestant Religion that will naturally feel themselves more intimately connected with the English Government.”





Some would say It doesn't require a fine tooth comb.

   

The whole of Prince Edward Island, about 1,400,000 acres, Lord Durham reported further, was alienated in one day.20

In New Brunswick, 4,400,000 acres had been granted or sold, leaving to the Crown about 11,000,000 acres, of which 5,500,000 acres were considered fit for settlement.21

All in one day!
Amazing isn't it?

   

I recall many many summers past 1967), doing a title search on the farm I operated. The oldest titles on the "block" were in about the 1820's. The registered owners read like a roll call of the members of Butler's Rangers and their extended families. A great many were obviously maiden ladies. It is doubtful if many of these folk ever set foot on the land let alone cleared and farmed it. This changed to Scots names about 1850---all males----many of those names still resonated in the neighbourhood at that time infact many were "century farms"---held in the familly about 100 years.
The farm next door went from a "Hoodless" to a "MacLeod".

There is no doubt that "The Familly Compact" existed and in it's own way shaped Canada. Durham was not popular with that crowd. Talbot and Dunlop acted like feudal lords.

   

Sasquatch2,

fuedal lords alright.

What kind of farming were you doing?
Hard work, sunup to sundown.