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PART III. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

Report of Dr. A. R. C. Selwyn, Director of the Geological and Natural History Survey.
Explorations and Surveys in British Columbia......

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Staff Appropriation, Expenditure, and Correspondence.......

PART IV. NORTH WEST TERRITORIES.

Report of His Honor Lieutenant Governor Royal......

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Return of special permissions for the importation of intoxicating liquors

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during the year..
Report of the Board of Education for the North-West Territories....

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PART V.

Report of J. H. Morgan, Forestry Commissioner.

PART VI.

Report of Geo. A. Stewart, Superintendent of Rocky Mountains Park.

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SIR, I have the honour to submit the Annual Report of the Department of the Interior for the Departmental year 1888, which covers the transactions of the Department at all its agencies to the 31st October last. It includes also a statement of everything of consequence which has transpired in relation to the business of the Department down to the close of the calendar year.

I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without an expression of my sense of the loss experienced by this Department in the death of your predecessor, the late Honourable Thomas White, who had administered its affairs for nearly three years before his decease, during which time he had devoted his well-known ability and industry to acquiring a thorough knowledge of the requirements of the North-West. Indeed, it may truly he said that the strain of the work left him unprepared to resist the attack of sickness which deprived Canada of the services of one of her most worthy public men. Except your own appointment, on the 3rd of August last, to the vacant portfolio, no other important change has taken place either in the Inside or Outside Service of the Department during the past year.

HOMESTEAD AND PRE-EMPTION ENTRIES AND SALES.

Following is a comparative statement of the homestead and pre-emption entries and sales which have been made at the several agencies of the Department during the years 1887 and 1888:

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It will be observed that the area of the homesteads taken up last year exceeds the area for the previous year by over one hundred thousand acres. The sales of lands show an increase also of over eighty thousand acres. The proportion of the settlers who have availe. themselves of the privilege of pre-emption, which has been gradually declining for the last four years, was lower in 1888 than ever before.

From 1880 to 1881 inclusive, as will be seen from the statement in the next following paragraph, an average of about three-fourths of the homestead settlers also entered for pre-emptions; in 1885 and 1886 the average fell to a little under and a little over one half for the respective years; in 1887 the proportion was only a little over one-fourth; while in 1888 it declined to almost exactly one sixth. The conviction grows among settlers that one hundred and sixty acres is as large an area as the average farmer can profitably work.

The following is a comparative table showing the land transactions of the Department, year by year, from 1812 down to the close of the last Departmental year

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The following statement, showing the number of homestead and pre-emption entries reported in each year since 1874, and the number and proportion of those entries which have since been cancelled for non-fulfilment of the conditions of entry, has been carefully revised and corrected from the returns which are received every month from the office of the Commissioner of Dominion Lands and the various Dominion Lands Agencies. A comparison of this table with the figures published in the reports for 1886 and 1887 will show that the cancellations which have lately taken place have been principally cancellations of entries made in the earlier years of the settlement of the North-West. A very small proportion of the entries made in recent years have been cancelled, showing that there has been a great decrease in the number of speculative entries and a corresponding increase in the number made by bond fide settlers.

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The following statement shows the number of letters received and sent by the Department in each year since its establishment. The total number of letters received and sent during last year was 95,705, of which 5,907 were received and 10,121 sent by the Geological Survey Branch. This is a decrease of 13,030 as compared with 1887.

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Herewith is a statement showing the receipts of the Department from year to year since its establishment, on account of homestead and pre-emption fees and sales. This statement has hitherto shown the revenue from the sources mentioned only, and bas made no account of the receipts from Crown timber, minerals, grazing lands, and miscellaneous sources. In the future it will be made to show the receipts of the Department from every source, except Ordnance and Admiralty

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