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PART I.

DOMINION LANDS.

No. 1.

REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF DOMINION LANDS.

Hon. EDGAR DEWDNEY,

Minister of the Interior,

Ottawa.

OFFICE OF THE DOMINION LANDS COMMISSION,
WINNIPEG, 1st November, 1888.

SIR,-I have the honor to submit the annual report of the Land Board for the year ending the 31st October, 1888, including the special reports addressed to myself by Messrs. Pearce (Superintendent of Mines), Gordon (Inspector of Dominion Lands Agencies), Aikman (Dominion Lands Agent at New Westminster and member of the Land Board), together with the reports of the several Crown Timber Agents in Manitoba and the Territories.

The work performed in my own office is as follows:

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ANNUAL report of the work done in connection with the Cancellation Department for the year ending the 31st October, 1888.

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You will observe that there has been an increase in all branches. The letters"received" and "sent " show a decided increase; applications for patent approved number this year 1,645, an increase of 278 over last year. I was obliged to reject 216 for various causes.

The reports received from Homestead Inspectors are 1,411 more than last year. This is in part due to the practice of requiring an inspector to visit and make enquiry as to every homestead for which application for patent is made, and in part to the increased demand for land and the consequent applications for cancellations of the entries for homesteads which are not occupied and cultivated as the law demands.

The amendment to the Dominion Lands Act, enabling the entry as homesteads of cancelled and abandoned pre-emptions, has so far worked most satisfactorily. The number of these entries recorded during the past year is 686; in the year ending 31st October, 1887, the number was 67. Great benefit must necessarily result from the opening of these lands. It adds materially to the number of resident settlers

throughout Manitoba and the North-West; the taxes paid by the settlors who occupy the lands, the articles subject to customs duty which they consume, all tend to increase, in a substantial degree, the general revenue. I am convinced that the opening of these lands for settlement has been of greater benefit to the Treasury than would be the proceeds of slow sales, deferred for, possibly, three or four years.

School Lands.

In January last the sales of school lands by public auction, held at Manitou, Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie and Brandon aggregated about 20,000 acres, at an average price of $7 per acre. This result is fairly satisfactory, but I am inolined to the opinion that a larger acreage would have been sold if the conditions of sale had been somewhat altered. We imposed the condition that the value of the improvements should be paid for the benefit of all settlers who were in actual occupation of the lands on the 1st day of October, 1887. This condition had a deterrent effect upon otherwise likely purchasers who were disinclined to pay for improvements at a valuation always difficult to arrive at, which the Department might impose. As a matter of fact, however careful we may be to value the improvements at their proper worth, it is impossible to do so for the reason that the ideas of the purchasers and our own ideas on this point may be utterly at variance. For instance, a well-to-do farmer may find improvements in the way of a dwelling house, stabling, &c., wholly inadequate and unfit for his purpose. Enforcing payment of their assessed value therefore acts as a deterrent in the purchase of the land so far as he is concerned. I might elaborate this argument considerably, but it seems unnecessary to do so. It is clear to my mind that in order to a proper administration of the school lands it is incumbent upon the Department to offer them for sale without any regard whatever to the interests of the people who illegally occupy them. I am of the opinion that in the majority of cases the detriment to the soil resulting from repeated croppings is not more than compensated for by the value of the buildings, &c., and if the owner of the so-called "improvements" does not purchase the land their value should be ignored so far as the Department is concerned. I think that the sale of these lands should not be hindered by consideration for any individual interest illegally acquired.

I have already submitted to you a scheme for the examination of school lands in order that we may be possessed of the fullest possible information regarding them. It is proposed that inspectors appointed for the purpose shall examine most carefully every quarter section before the lands are offered for sale, after the manner in which the examination of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's lands is conducted. Their reports will show the character of the soil and other natural features of every legal sub-division, the position of the land in regard to railways, post office, school, church, &c, also its approximate value per acre.

Before the land is offered for sale it will be carefully valued. I estimate that a thorough examination of these lands in the manner proposed will not exceed $9 per section, and there can be no doubt that the benefit to the school trust as the result of these examinations amply warrants the expenditure.

Land Titles in Manitoba.

Some of the leading firms of barristers in Winnipeg have recently petitioned you on this subject drawing attention to the fact that many titles in the Province, obtained under the homestead provisions of the "Dominion Lands Act," are bad at law, in consequence of the homesteader, before receiving a patent or a recommendation for patent, having conveyed, or agreed to convey, his land, and you are asked to recommend to Parliament the introduction of an Act which will make these titles good. It appears to me that the petitioners are entitled to the relief asked for in respect of all cases where, before conveying or agreeing to convey the land, the homesteader had perfected the residence and cultivation which the law required and had become practically entitled to a patent, and had conveyed in ignorance of the law which prohibited his so doing.

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