ABSTRACT

The methods by which land grants were made to immigrants and others in both Canada and the United States were of a highly unsatisfactory nature. The new system gained the confidence of the people, and, almost immediately, the freshly-surveyed districts began to draw streams of settlers from the older states. The duties of the former were concerns apportioning and conveying plots to purchasers, whilst the latter collected and transmitted to the Treasury the sums accruing from the sales. The Republic has preserved no data to show the nationality of the people to whom it has sold plots of the public domain, and has only in more recent times kept a check at the immigrant ports of the origin of the people visiting its shores. The moneys so obtained, it may be adds, were uses in improving roads, constructing bridges, or helping destitute immigrant labourers to reach towns where work is plentiful.