THE LAND SYSTEM.

I omitted to mention one very important subject which is reserved for the Central Government, viz., the disposal of the unoccupied lands. The original States of the Union had and retained the disposal of their own lands; and the great new State of Texas, on coming into the Union, made a bargain that it should retain a similar power; but with this excep tion all the vast lands west of the Alleghanies, and out of which so many great new States and Territories have been formed, were considered to belong to the people of the United States as a whole, and are by them offered, not only to their own citizens, but to all foreigners who are willing to come and settle among them. It is under the system adopted by the central authority that wise rules have been passed and precautions taken to which I have already alluded, and under which land-jobbing and the monopoly of great areas is prevented. Great populations of free and independent small farmers owning their own land have been thus attracted to the soil of America. Only in exceptional cases and for special reasons is any public land sold in an unrestricted manner. is reserved for bona fide settlers. Every citizen and every man willing to become a citizen of the United States is, under the homestead law, entitled to a free grant of 80 or 160 acres, according to the situation, provided he settles upon it and fulfils conditions ensuring that it is taken up for real cultivation, and not for speculation and sale. Or, again, he may buy

It

a similar plot or a larger one up to 320 acres at five or ten shillings per acre (according to situation), under less restrictive conditions, but still subject to precautions against land-jobbing. Where peculiar circumstances exist―as, for instance, where large irriga tion works are necessary to profitable cultivationthe land is sold in large blocks. And there has been a good deal of outcry of late regarding what is supposed to be a departure from the principle of the American land system in the grant of great quantities of land to railway companies. Though there may have been a good deal of jobbing in particular instances, I doubt whether the general complaint is very well-founded. I have alluded to the want of roads in America. In the deep black soil of the Western Prairie States roads are not only absent but most difficult and expensive to make. Railways are the very life of the country. Vast new tracts have been and are being opened up by railways which otherwise could not have been approached, and valueless land is made valuable by railways, that close to the line being, of course, infinitely more valuable than that away from it. Hence, the value being created by the railways, I think it was far from an unwise system to pay for the construction of railways into unoccupied countries, where no one would otherwise make them, out of the value thus created. The system adopted was to grant to those who made the railways every alternate square mile block along the line, the other alternate blocks being reserved for sale at an enhanced rate, or for homestead grants of smaller

area than elsewhere. Certainly the opening out of the country has been thus secured, and I don't gather that a very large amount of land-jobbing has resulted; for, the custom of the country being favourable to real settlement and small farms, the railways have generally laid out their lands with that object, and disposed of them to bond fide farmers in lots of 40, 80, 160, or 320 acres. I saw a good deal of the country thus occupied along the Illinois Central Railway, the best known case in which the system of railway grants was adopted, and certainly the result has there been a very excellent settlement of such farmers on farms suited to their means. It is only in some of the outlying tracts in the Far West that a few great estates have been got together and that one hears of farms on a magnificent scale; but I gather that they are rather made to sell than anything else, and that the magnificent descriptions of them which have been circulated are of the nature of advertisements, with a view to their disposal in moderate lots. In Texas and some of the Far Western States land not suited for agriculture is, I believe, held in large grazing farms. In California the land was claimed in large blocks under old Spanish titles, which the United States Courts have declared to be valid, and by pur chase of these titles large estates have been acquired, so that the tenure of land and structure of society is different there from other parts of the United States.

The system of survey and registration of all the lands settled under the system which I have described

is admirable. The whole country is accurately sur veyed and lotted off into square mile sections of 640 acres, with rectangular road-spaces dividing them. These are again divided into quarter sections of 160 acres, and these again, as occasion requires, into 80 and 40 acre sections; so that every 40-acre plot can be accurately stated and traced by the use of a very few figures in the simplest possible manner.

After a few years' bond fide settlement and cultivation all land is freely transferable, so that there is not the least practical difficulty in acquiring large farms, or even large estates, if, for purposes of large and high cultivation or systematic management, anyone wishes to acquire such by fair purchase, and not by mere land-jobbing and forestalling. In the older States plenty of large tracts are, in fact, in the market; so that it is not for want of opportunity if the large culture system is not often followed.

The system of direct taxation which prevails in the United States is, on the other hand, very effectual to prevent large quantities of land being kept waste for jobbing or speculative purposes, since all private property of this kind is taxed, whether it is cultivated or not.

Thus the land system of the United States is in great contrast to that of most of our colonies, where not only are great quantities of land monopolised by squatters and jobbers, but such tracts have been held almost exempt from taxation. In Australia these land questions seem to be very prominent; but meantime it appears that there the public land is being

very rapidly sold away and the proceeds spent as

revenue.

In the United States not only is the public land reserved and local jobbing and improvident sale prevented, but, although free self-governing institutions within certain limits are given to the settlers in new territory, they by no means at once obtain the complete self-government which our colonies now usually have. As soon as there is a moderate population what are called Territories are formed. But these Territories are under governors appointed by the President, the laws passed by their Legislatures are subject to the approval of Congress, and they are, as it were, kept in leading-strings till they arrive at a tolerable maturity, when they are converted into States, and admitted into the Union as such.

Besides the public lands, the central Government reserves the function of dealing with the Indians, the old possessors or roamers over these lands; and considerable tracts (in one quarter what amounts to the area of a State, comprising, it is said, as good land as any in the Union) have been reserved for them. In Canada I believe that some of the tame Indians have been turned into tolerable farmers, and the wild ones keep up amicable relations with the Government. Tame squaws knit stockings about the Niagara Falls. In the States one sees very little of tame Indians. A number of young Indians from the West are being trained in a college in Virginia, who are to be sent back to carry civilisation to their tribes; but meanwhile these Western tribes are extremely trouble