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As the early
history of the Ontario lumber trade goes back to tbe time when this
great section of Canada formed a part of Quebec, any time selected
for its beginning, save that time when the pioneers of New France
began to sell timber to their neighbors, must be purely arbitrary.
This is true for two other reasons also: First, because the great
avenue of the lumber trade, the Ottawa River, is the boundary line
between the two Provinces; and, second, because Upper and Lower
Canada, after being separated in 1791, were again united under old
legislature from 1840-1 to 1867. While the public records were in a
measure kept separate they operated under the same laws, while the
capital city changed every four years from Toronto to the fortress
of Quebec. Some things which equally affected the trade in Ontario
have been described in dealing with Quebec and are only touched on
here, while other things, which it has been deemed advisable to
treat in connection with this Province, were matters of momentous
importance to the lumbermen of Quebec. However, for the purpose of
this description of the lumber trade, Ontario history may be
considered to begin with the setting apart of Upper Canada as a
separate province in 1791. This was the period when the only persons
authorized to cut timber in the King’s forests in Canada were the
contractors for the royal navy,, who, under their licenses, managed
to cut a good deal for the general market without returning any
revenue to the Crown. As a part of Quebec, Ontario had part and lot
in the regulations regarding the running of the rapids in the St.
Lawrence and the preferential duties granted by Great Britain.
The lumber industry
was one of the first mechanical activities established in Ontario,
and dates back to the early days of the settlement of the country
shortly after the American Revolution. At that time the entire
country now embraced within the limits of the Province was densely
wooded. In the southern portion, where the first settlements were
made, the hardwood varieties predominated, largely interspersed in
some localities with the white pine and other coniferous trees. In
the more northerly sections, however, and especially in the Ottawa
Valley, the pine, hitherto the main factor in the forest wealth of
Canada, and its kindred species grew in profusion and at an early
date became a valuable and much appreciated source of revenue to the
pioneers, who depended largely on the means realized from the timber
export trade to procure the supplies they required.
Incidental to the
work of clearing the land, the settlers in many localities where
small sawmills were established were enabled to procure supplies of
lumber for local consumption^ but the Ottawa Valley, with the means
of transportation furnished by the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers,
early attained that preeminence as a source of the export trade on a
large scale which it has since maintained.
In treating of this
phase of the subject it is difficult to confine this account
strictly to the trade of Ontario, as the industry in the early days
developed simultaneously upon both sides of the river, some of the
largest mills drawing their supplies from Ontario being located on
the Quebec side.
The watershed of
the Ottawa embraces a region of about 80,000 square miles, much of
it good agricultural land, and producing originally some of the
finest pine timber in the world. Two hundred and fifty miles to the
northwest of the City of Ottawa the river expands into a long and
narrow sheet of water known as Lake Temiscamingue, which presents
sixty miles of unbroken navigation and receives numerous important
tributaries—including the Blanche, the Montreal and the Quinze
rivers. Navigation on the Ottawa is interrupted by numerous rapids
and falls, the most notable being the grand falls of the Chaudiere,
immediately above Ottawa City, which furnish the power for many
extensive mills and factories. The territory drained by the numerous
tributaries of the Ottawa before its confluence with the St.
Lawrence includes some of the richest and most valuable timber yet
remaining unexploited.
THE PIONEER OF THE
OTTAWA VALLEY.
The pioneer in the
timber trade of the Ottawa Valley was Philemon Wright, an
adventurous American, whose descendants have occupied prominent
positions in the Ottawa district. Mr. Wright was a citizen of
Woburn, Massachusetts, and the first man to appreciate the natural
wealth and advantages of the Ottawa Valley as a field for
colonization. His first visit was made in 1796. In the following
year he returned and, in the face of many hardships and
difficulties, explored the country on both sides of the river as far
as the Chaudiere Falls. He was particularly impressed with the value
of the timber (“ sufficient,” as he afterward reported, “to load a
thousand vessels ”) and with the possibilities of the Chaudiere
Falls, or the Asticou, as the Indians called them. This cataract, or
Chaudiere (caldron) as the French-Canadian lumbermen christened it,
is situated at the place where the mighty Ottawa, contracted from
the width of over a mile to a few hundred feet, pours itself over
rocks thirty feet high, into a boiling, steaming pot with force
sufficient to drive all the busy wheels of a great modern city. This
fall represents the point where, for four hundred miles in the
course of the Ottawa, the shores of the Provinces of Ontario and
Quebec approach most nearly to each other.
Mr. Wright left
Woburn February 2, 1800, with five families, and had in his train
fourteen horses, eight oxen and seven sleighs. His destination was
what was then a wilderness inhabited by a few Indians only. He
settled opposite the present City of Ottawa, having obtained an
extensive grant of land from the Government. Mr. Wright, like the
patriarch, had the whole land before him and could choose either the
right hand or the left. He chose the Quebec side and founded the
city of Hull, doubtless without dreaming that on the high, rocky
cliff on the other shore would within a century be seen the Gothic
spires and turrets of the “Washington of the North,” the capital of
a country stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The first
tree was felled on the site of his homestead March 7 of the same
year.
In 1807 Mr. Wright
took the first raft of square timber down the Ottawa to Quebec. The
few settlers declared such an undertaking to be impossible on
account of the obstructions in the river, but,Mr. Wright was
determined to make the attempt and, in the face of gigantic
difficulties, accomplished the trip. It required thirty-six days, as
the venturesome pioneer and his assistants were unacquainted with
the river and had to proceed with great caution. He continued,
during subsequent years, floating to Quebec white oak and the finest
qualities of pine. The squared oak was withed up by the ends with
lighter material to keep it afloat, or loaded on white pine cribs.
It took both time and patience to get acquainted with the dangerous
parts of the river and, until improvements were made, many cases of
drowning occurred.
He built his first
sawmill and grist mill in 1808. These were burned and were rebuilt
with his characteristic pluck in sixty days. Square timber was
hastened to market as rapidly as possible, the mills being rebuilt
with the. proceeds. The business grew and flourished and Mr. Wright
eventually derived a large income from it. He built the first timber
“ slide,” on the Hull side of the river, in 1829. Mr. Wright was
elected the first member of the Canadian Parliament to represent
Ottawa in 1830. He died in 1839, and his name has been perpetuated
in Wright County, Quebec. His son, Alonzo Wright, was for many
years' a striking figure in the Canadian Parliament, in and out of
which he was known, from the tributary of the Ottawa which his
family and himself bad done so much to develop, as “The King of the
Gatineau.”
The City of Ottawa,
the present center of the lumber business, remained in a state of
nature for some time after Philemon Wright had formed the nucleus of
a settlement on the opposite shore of the river. In 1826 it was
covered with bush and had only one house on the present site of the
Upper Town. The first impetus to settlement was given by the
construction of the Rideau Canal, projected mainly as a military
work, under the superintendence of Colonel By. This work was
completed in 1831, and in the succeeding year the village of Bytown,
as it was then named in honor of Colonel By, had about one hundred
and fifty houses. Thereafter it grew rapidly and Hull became
practically a suburb.
Meanwhile lumbering
operations had been extensively pushed in the district and
manufacturing developed to a greater extent than elsewhere in the
Province. About 1815 a Air. Story built a sawmill on the Ottawa; and
it is stated that when the man in charge “gigged” back the carriage
for a fresh cut he would sit down on the log and eat his dinner,
which would be about finished when the cut was done. It is no wonder
that heart failure and nervous prostration were then unknown. Robert
Gourley, prominent as an author and a political agitator, in his “
Statistical Account of Upper Canada,” published in 1818, mentions
that sawmills of the best construction were in operation on an
island in the Ottawa River opposite the higher part of Hawkesbury
Town ship t on a scale superior to that of any other in the
Province. “The business seemed to be carried on with great spirit,
about fourscore people being employed in the works on the island.”
They were first owned by Mr. Mears, of Hawkesbury, but, at the time
he wrote, they were the property of Mr. Hamilton, from Ireland.
Statistics compiled
from the assessment rolls of the Province of Upper Canada give nine
sawmills as the number existing in the Ottawa district in 1823, the
total number in the eleven districts into which the Province was
then divided being 363. The great majority of these, however, were
run merely to supply local requirements.
The town of
Pembroke, about one hundred and twenty miles up the river from
Ottawa, was founded in 1828 by Colonel Peter White, a native of
Edinburgh, Scotland, who was for many years one of the principal
timber merchants of the Ottawa Valley. His sons have been actively
engaged in the lumber business, and by their enterprise have done
much to build up their native town.
The town of
Deseronto, on the Bay of Quints, near the eastern end of Lake
Ontario, was founded by Hugo B. Rathbun, of Auburn, New York. In
1854 Mr. Rathbun engaged in the manufacture of lumber at Mill Point,
now Deseronto, Ontario. Later his son, Edward Wilkes Rathbun, was
taken into partnership and was given the complete charge of the
Deseronto business. About 1868 the Rathbun lumber yards were
established at Oswego, New York, and sawmills were built later at
Gravenhurst, Lindsay, Campbellford, Fenelon Falls, Tweed, Mani-toulin
Island and Bancroft. The Rathbuns owned two railroads, one from
Deseronto to Tweed, a distance of thirty miles, and another
connecting Gananoque with the Grand Trunk railroad. They also owned
a line of steamers operating on the Bay of Quints. They manufactured
one million railroad ties a year and also owned the cement works
near Napanee, gas works, sash and blind factories, match splint
factory, chemical works, ship yards, locomotive works and car shops.
The firm also operated four lumber yards in Canada and the United
States. Edward Wilkes Rathbun died in November, 1903, and was
succeeded by his son, E. W. Rathbun.
Henry Franklin
Bronson of Bolton, New York, came to Ottawa (then Bytown) in 1853
and built on Victoria Island, in the Ottawa River, the first sawmill
which shipped lumber from the Ottawa River to the American market.
The venture prospered and grew, and many fortunes were made in the
trade.
THE FIRST PAPER
MILL IN ONTARIO.
V. H. Hickox, .of
Niagara Falls, tells of the first paper mill in Ontario. He says:
It was in the
summer of 1841 that my father and another paper maker, whose name
was Samuel Prine, engaged to go to Toronto and start the first paper
mill in Upper Canada'. They left Niagara Falls in June of that year.
This mill was located about three miles from the city, up the River
Don, a beautiful clear stream of water, well supplied with trout and
other kinds of fish in abundance. The country round about was a vast
wilderness of heavy timber, mostly pine, with here and there a
little clearing with log cabin homes of the early pioneers.
Eastwood and
Skinner, brothers-in-law, two enterprising Englishmen, built the
first mill and received a cash premium from the Canadian government.
In connection with the paper mill there was a grist mill, a brewery
and distillery, owned by the Helliwell Brothers. The place was named
Don Mills.
My father made a
sojourn of seven years, during which time he started a second paper
mill on the Don River, two miles above the first mill. We moved to
Hamburg, west of Buffalo, about 1848. In the year 1851, Albert H.
Porter sold the paper mill on Bath Island and my father, by this
change, secured his old position as superintendent of the upper Don
paper mills. Then he moved back to Toronto in 1851, where he
remained for many years, respected as the man who made the first
sheet of paper in the Upper Province of Canada.
CROWN TIMBER
REGULATIONS.
During the earlier
years of the lumber industry there were practically no restrictions
on the cutting of timber upon the public domain and no thought on
the part of the Government of deriving a revenue from the forest
resources. When the British took possession of the country in 1763
elaborate instructions were furnished to Governor James Murray as to
his administration. The British government was solicitous for the
preservation of large areas of forest land as a source of supply of
timber for naval construction, and the Governor was ordered to set
aside in every township “proper quantities of land” for
fortifications, barracks and other military or naval services, and
more particularly for the growth and production of naval timber, “if
there are any woodlands fit for that purpose.”
The policy which
the British government laid down for the formation of Crown timber
reserves in Quebec for the preservation of timber for the royal navy
was reaffirmed when Upper Canada was set apart as a separate
province. The Duke of Richmond, governor-in-chief of the Province of
Upper Canada, in 1818 received elaborate instructions that no land
should be allotted to settlers until the district had been surveyed
and those parts containing masting or other timber fit for the use
of the royal navy reserved. Difficulties intervened and these
regulations, wise in many respects, were never carried out.
These instructions,
though subsequently repeated, were never observed, possibly because
the governors had many more urgent matters to engage their attention
and no doubt regarded the reservation of forests as altogether
superfluous in a country where the timber, until a much later
period, seemed inexhaustible.
It was not until
1826 that the earliest steps were taken to secure revenue from the
forests on the Crown lands. Previous to this the only persons
authorized to cut timber on the public lands were the contractors
for the royal navy or those holding licenses for them. In the early
years of the Nineteenth Century licenses to cut timber in the
Canadian forests were granted by the Imperial government to
contractors for the royal dock yards, who, in addition to filling
their contracts, took advantage of the privilege granted them for
that purpose to do a general business in supplying the British
markets. Their mode of operation was to issue licenses to merchants
and lumbermen in Canada who were then legally authorized to cut
timber as their agents. While these favored firms had a legal
monopoly of cutting timber on the public lands, for which they paid
nothing to the revenue, a number of unlicensed lumbermen pursued the
business actively without asking the leave of anyone. It was found
impossible to suppress this practice so long as those who desired to
engage in the industry were debarred from doing so in a legitimate
manner. The unfairness of the system led to its abolition.
ESTABLISHMENT OF
TIMBER DUES SYSTEM.
In 1826 the
contractors' monopoly was abrogated and for the first time was
inaugurated a system under which the cutting of timber on the
ungranted lands of the Ottawa region was extended to anyone desiring
to embark in the business, on payment of a fixed scale of rates.
This was announced May 3, 1826, by a proclamation of Sir Peregrine
Maitland, lieutenant governor of Upper Canada. The dues fixed in
this proclamation were: Upon oak timber £6 5s a thousand, or 1/^d a
foot; red pine £4 3s 4d a thousand, or Id a foot; yellow (white)
pine, £2 Is 8d a thousand, or /^d a foot; sawed, 2d a log; staves,
£4 Is 8d a thousand “to be paid in lawful money of our Province of
Upper Canada.” For the purpose of preventing too small timbers being
cut, double the amount of duty was charged upon all which did not
square more than eight inches. The money was Canadian currency, one
pound sterling of which was equal to $4.
In the case of some
of the mills in operation at this early date in the Ottawa Valley,
much of the supply apparently came from lands which had been granted
by the Crown, for the exploitation of which no license was
necessary. Philemon Wright, for instance, is stated to have obtained
land grants amounting to 13,000 acres.
The first collector
of timber dues on the Ottawa River was Robert Shireff, a pioneer
lumberman whose son, Charles Shireff, acted conjointly with him
without receiving any formal appointment. The system was modified
somewhat in 1827 when Peter Robinson was appointed surveyor general
of woods and forests for Upper Canada. It was provided that licenses
to cut specified quantities of the various kinds of merchantable
timber off a given territory were to be sold by auction, with upset
prices fixed at considerably less than the previously adopted scale.
The expenses of the surveyor general’s office were very modest. He
was allowed £25 per annum for office rent, a like sum for a
messenger, and £10 for fuel. Pay of clerks and assistants “as may be
necessary and as the governor may deem reasonable” was allowed, but
with a special proviso that the whole of such expenses was not to
exceed one-sixth of the revenue derived from licenses.
Robinson was
instructed to survey the forests in the Province and state what
parts it was advisable to keep for the use of the King and | what
might be sold. The generous instructions showed how little idea the
British government had of the size of a province over 260,000 square
miles in area, or only about 5,000 square miles less than the great
State of Texas, and which, after three-quarters of a century of
development, still has large areas unexplored and which will
probably not be surveyed until a century from the time Peter
Robinson started out. Such timber as was not required for the navy
and which was deemed expedient to cut was to be put up for sale
after due notice in the York (Toronto) Gazette. Each license was not
to exceed 2,000 cubic feet and the upset prices were, per thousand
feet: Oak, £3 3s 4d; ash, elm or beech, £2 10s; red pine, £3; white
pine, £1 10s; staves, and handspikes, £1. The timber was to be cut
within nine months and paid for within fifteen months from date of
license. Measurers were appointed in each district to certify to the
amount of lumber cut.
The attempt to
regulate the price of licenses by competition was not at that time
successful as, owing to the laxity of administration which then
prevailed and the recklessness with which the public lands were
granted in large areas to men of influence and to political
favorites, lumbermen found it considerably more profitable to obtain
the fee simple of timbered land, either directly from the Government
or by purchase from the first holders of the title, than to pay
timber dues. Hence the receipts for some years were small. In 1827
the first returns from timber licenses in Upper Canada were
received, the amount being $360. The following year the revenue from
this source was $3,134, and in 1829, $2,287.
It may be noted
incidentally that about this time Canadians began to reckon in
dollars and cents, instead of in pounds, shillings and pence, though
for some time thereafter both systems were used. In fact, there are
old farmers in the back townships who to this day calculate in “York
shillings.”
CONDITIONS
PRECEDENT TO THE REBELLION OF 1837.
The loose and
careless business methods characteristic of the system of collecting
timber dues, as well as other branches of administration in the
years preceding Mackenzie’s Rebellion, resulted in a loss of many
thousands of pounds to the revenue owing to business complications
in which the Shireffs became involved. When, under Lord Durham’s
administration in 1838, after the suppression of the rebellion, an
exhaustive investigation was made into the abuses which provoked it,
it was officially stated that the gross amount received by the
Province of Upper Canada for timber dues, from the establishment of
the system up to January 30, 1838, a period of about ten and a half
years, was £58,085 4s lid.
Under the system in
vogue at this period the licenses designated the quantity to be cut
and the applicant was required to deposit in advance 25 percent of
the amount of dues called for by the regulations on that quantity. A
frequent practice, however, was to exceed greatly the cut stipulated
for, as in this way the cash deposit required was proportionately
reduced. A bond was given to cover ^he balance of the estimated
dues.
A license granted
to James Wadsworth, of Hull, in 1836 gave him the right to cut
40,000 feet of red pine timber oh the south side of the Bonnechere
River on the following terms: “ Sum payable for this license £41 13s
4d currency, being 25 percent on £166 13s 4d, the value of 40,000
feet at Id. For the balance of £125, a bond has been granted payable
1st November, 1837.”
The descriptions of
the limits in these old licenses were often rather vague and
indefinite. That in the above mentioned document reads as follows:
“The limits granted in the foregoing license are Butted and Bounded
as follows, viz.: Commencing one Mile below Enoes’ or the Indian
Doctor’s Landing and to extend up on the south side of the river ten
miles more or less to its source or so far as it is capable of
floating down timber and to run back five miles, more or less, half
way to the waters of the Madawaska River on the course south 21
degrees west.”
Another license
granted to John Supple, of Hull, in 1838 permits him to cut 25,000
cubic feet of red pine on the north side of the Inlet of Lake Dore,
the rate and terms of payment being the same as in the previous
case. His limits were described as “ Commencing at the head of Lake
Dore to extend three miles up the inlet of the said Lake to be
measured on the course S. 82 degrees W. and to run back four miles
more or less to the limits granted on Indian River on the course
North 8 degrees W.”
It is not
surprising that, owing to the want of precision in the definition of
limits, disputes often arose between limit holders. These
difficulties often resulted in resort to physical force, in which
the operator who happened to have the largest number of men on the
ground generally came off triumphant. In fact, the frequency with
which this rough-and-ready means for the settlement of controversies
between rival lumbermen was resorted to became one of the causes of
overproduction, as the limit holders, finding it advisable to have a
large force of men on the spot should it become necessary, in
diplomatic phrase, to “rectify their frontiers” and prevent their
neighbors from construing the “more or less” qualifications in their
licenses too liberally, increased the output considerably beyond the
requirements of the market.
It may be noted
that until the union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada in
1840, the disposal of timber, as well as of lands and other natural
resources, was entirely in the hands of the Crown, that is to say,
the administration of the day, without any responsibility to the
legislature as to the expenditure of the revenue derived from them.
The manner in which this privilege was abused for the benefit of the
official classes and their friends was one of the grievances which
caused the outbreak in 1837. The plan which was actually adopted and
the system which grew up was for lumbermen to apply in the autumn
for a license stating the quantity that they wanted to cut and
paying 25 percent of the dues in advance. As they were not required
to confine themselves strictly to the quantity specified they
advanced as little money as possible. The timber was cut the next
winter and rafted to Quebec City, to which point the collector
proceeded and received the dues. In fact, the practice grew up of
taking the notes of Quebec lumber shippers instead of the bonds
originally given by the lumbermen, so that the timber was across the
ocean and sold in London before the dues were actually paid. For
many years this worked no harm; but later, when bad seasons came and
several firms failed, the revenue suffered a loss of several
thousand pounds.
This free and easy
handling of revenues and treatment of instructions from Westminster
was not the worst thing about the administration of this period.
Great Britain had lost half the continent and was not inclined to
lose the other half in the same way; but London was a long way from
Quebec and Toronto, and the officials who came out to administer the
affairs of the country were disposed to make hay while the sun shone
and trust to the distance preventing the news filtering back to
London. The people in the colony of Massachusetts rebelled because
taxes were imposed without their consent; but the English settlers
in Ontario and the French-Canadians in Quebec took up arms in 1837
because their great natural resources were alienated and given to
friends and favorites with a lavish hand. The governor and the
majority of his counsel were appointed; and, by methods familiar to
all politicians in all ages, they practically secured all the jobs
for their relatives and retainers. The administration was known,
both in Lower and Upper Canada, as the “Family Compact,” which had
become a synonym for jobbery and corruption.
MACKENZIE REBELLION
AND ITS RESULTS.
In Canada, or any
other colony, the difficulty would be speedily gotten rid of today
by the legislature refusing to vote supplies, and the administration
unable to carry on the government or pay its officials, would
resign; but in 1837 the revenue which the administration received
was sufficient to pay the running expenses of the government. There
was a rebellion in both Upper and Lower Canada, in which all the
nationalities represented in Canada joined. In Lower Canada it was
led by a French-Canadian, Papineau, with English and Irish
lieutenants; while in Upper Canada it was led by an irrepressible
Scotchman, William Lyon Mackenzie. The United Empire Loyalists, who
had left their fat farms and prosperous businesses in the United
States rather than exchange King George for George Washington, were
among those who most keenly opposed the Family Compact, and many
took up arms, not against the King, but against corrupt ministers
who thwarted his will.
The rebels had a
good cause, but the fates were against them. They rose on December
4, 1837, and trusted to gain possession of York (Toronto), and also
of the Quebec centers of population, before the loyalists could be
supported by reenforcements from the garrisons in Lower Canada. But,
owing to one of the most remarkably open winters on record, ships
were able to navigate Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence in midwinter
and the rebels were crushed, beaten, the leaders forced to flee to
the United States, and some who were caught were hanged by the
victorious Family Compact.
It is said that
success is the only justification for rebellion; but this rebellion
was justified, though abortive, and the leaders returned from the
United States and from their hiding places in the back woods to be
elected to the highest positions within the gift of their
countrymen. The reason for this was that the attention of the
British government was called to the fact that the state of things
in the colony was so desperate and so unjust that men were willing
to risk their lives to wipe it out. Lord Durham was sent out to
inquire into the whole matter, and as a result of that inquiry he
released the prisoners still lying in the jails when he arrived,
removed the governors, recalled the fugitives and forever put an end
to the Family Compact by giving the people full, responsible local
government.
The report of Lord
Durham shows that the main abuse from which the country suffered was
the granting of wiWl^QdsJu large tracts to persons who had no
intention of improving them, but of simpIyTiolding them for a rise
in value.
The effect of this
practice upon the lumber trade was important. Much of this land,
granted so far in excess of actual needs of settlement, was covered
with valuable timber, and lumbermen speedily saw that it was cheaper
to get hold of the land with all that was on it than to pay the
prices charged for the timber licenses. This encouraged improved
methods of lumbering. The repeated instructions of the Imperial
government to set aside permanent timber reserves and to confine
settlement to lands adopted to agriculture were unregarded, and much
of the area granted was capable of producing nothing but timber to
advantage. Lands could be bought for from 1 to 4 shillings an acre,
while the timber dues on an average tract were 6s 8d an acre.
Prominent men in the government of Canada urged that, as there was
now but little pine left in the United States except in Maine and
Carolina, prices should be higher for timber berths in Canada; and
they gave as a reason why they were not the presence of the large
areas of wild lands open to purchase.
The deputy
postmaster general of British North America, T. A. Stayner, in
giving evidence before a commission said that in 1835 and 1836
speculators came over from Maine and New York and purchased about a
million acres of land said to be wooded with pine or spruce. The
Americans estimated these lands as worth from $2 to $6 an acre.
Charles Shireff, who has been previously spoken of as the collector
of dues at Ottawa, mentions a party of Americans who purchased
thousands of acres in the township of Onslow for ten shillings an
acre, which price could not bear any proportion to the value of the
timber. Many similar cases had occurred, he told the investigating
committee, and the temptation to do it was very great because the
purchasers were not required to pay the full amount of the purchase
price, but only a first installment of varying size, say a fifth or
a fourth, and the only penalty for the nonpayment of the remaining
installment was the resumption of the land, about which, since the
lumberman had stripped off the timber, he was naturally very
indifferent.
Mr. Shireff urged
that the Government should not sell lands unfit for settlement but
merely the timber on them. Though this warning was stated and
reiterated by every one interested in the permanent development of
the lumber industry, it was many years before it was acted upon. It
was acted upon at length, however, and now in Ontario the question
is not as to the principle but as to how large a block of arable
land in a forest belt should be to make it worth while for the
Government to throw it open for settlement.
According to an
official statement made at the investigation just referred to, the
timber dues collected for a period of ten and a half years, from
1827 to 1838, amounted to £58,085 4s lid; this was exclusive of
losses through loose methods of collecting dues and defalcation of
upward of £9,000.
UNION OF 1841 AND
NEW TIMBER REGULATIONS.
The result of the
rebellion and all these commissions and reports was the union in
1841 of Upper and Lower Canada with a government responsible to the
people through their elected representatives.
One of the first
things which the new legislature took up was the administration of
the timber lands. The collector at Bytown (Ottawa) was instructed to
issue licenses in the usual form, but for a limited period, to
relicense limits not properly worked and, where there were two or
more applicants for the same berth, to put it up at auction for a
bonus over the dues. The quantity of timber which the licensees were
bound to take out was 5,000 feet a mile of river front and no limit
was to exceed ten miles of frontage. This was the first time that
the auction principle, now generally adopted, was recognized in
Canada.
The receipts from
timber in Upper Canada for the year 1839 were £8,244; and for the
next thirteen months £18,881, a difference possibly due to the
“house cleaning” before turning affairs over to the new government.
Under the new regime the timber receipts for Upper and Lower Canada
were in 1842, £37,572; in 1843, £46,301; in 1844, £28,828.
The representatives
of the people did not seem to recognize the necessity of preserving*
timber. Most of them appeared to think the tree their enemy, and the
impression that the forest area was unlimited rendered them
careless. The idea of reforestry and harvesting a periodic crop was
not then bom in America. A motion to discuss a resolution to prevent
the cutting of timber (apparently absolutely) off public lands
received short shrift in 1846, but its exact nature and object can
not be learned from the journals.
In 1842 new
regulations as to the granting of licenses were adopted and the
principle of competition between lumbermen in cases where there was
more than one applicant for the same limit was put into effect.
Willful trespass by limit holders upon public property not included
in their limits, which had been frequent under the former
conditions, was declared punishable by the cancellation of the
license and the seizure of timber so taken, and limit holders were
obliged to cut 5,000 feet per square mile off their holdings in each
year.
In the earlier days
of the export trade with Britain the shippers had to encounter a
strong prejudice on the part of the consumer against Canadian pine,
which was erroneously supposed to be particularly subject to dry rot
and altogether of a quality inferior to that of the Baltic pine. The
cause of this prejudice and the change of opinion that finally came
about are fully treated in the first chapter on Quebec and,
therefore, need not be repeated here.
Another noticeable
change in the demand of the British market which occurred somewhat
later was the increased appreciation of white pine as compared with
red. Red pine, by reason of its similarity to the product of the
forests of northern Europe, ever since the introduction of Canadian
timber had been more highly esteemed. At an early day the dues on
red pine had been fixed at one penny a foot, while white pine paid
only one-half penny. So marked was the falling off in the British
demand for the former that in 1852 the corporations of Bytown and
the municipal council of Carleton County petitioned the Government
for the reduction of the red pine duties to the same amount as those
payable on white pine. Such valid reasons were advanced in favor of
the change that the Government decided to make the reduction.
The year 1845 was
an exceedingly prosperous one for the lumber trade, owing largely to
the heavy demand in the English market at very remunerative prices.
The temporarily favorable conditions resulted in considerable
overproduction, which, coupled with a falling off in requirements
abroad during 1846 and succeeding years, created a serious
depression in the industry. The regulations of the Crown lands
department had contributed not a little to stimulate production to
an undue degree by requiring the taking out of a large quantity of
timber on every limit, regardless of the requirements of the market
or the convenience of the operator, under penalty of forfeiture of
the limit.
More stringent
regulations were adopted in 1846, when the limit was reduced to five
miles in length along the river by five in depth, or half way to the
next river. The then holders of licenses were allowed to hold them
for two years longer, but after that time the limits must be
subdivided to these sizes. New and renewed berths were to be put up
at auction. The parties were to bind themselves to take out 1,000
feet a square mile a year and were to pay one-fourth of the dues
upon this forthwith and bonds were to be given for the remaining
three-fourths.
In 1849 the
Legislative Assembly appointed a select committee to inquire into
and report on the state of the lumber trade, the evidence taken
before which indicated some important features of the license system
in which reform was necessary. The committee reported that the
regulation requiring the cutting of a certain amount of timber on
each limit, together with the uncertain tenure of limits, tended to
cause overproduction. They recommended the abolition of the deposit
system and the substitution of ground rents.
FIRST CANADIAN
TIMBER LICENSE LEGISLATION.
The immediate
outcome was the adoption during the same year of the first Canadian
legislative enactment on the subject of timber licenses, which, with
the regulations issued in accordance with its provisions,
practically forms the point of departure from which the present
system has been evolved. The characteristic and valuable feature of
this legislation was that, by practically giving» the license holder
a preferential claim to renewal of his license so long^as he
complied with its conditions, and securing him against encroachment
by rivals, it imparted greater stability and permanence to the
industry and lessened the temptation to reckless overproduction and
wasteful methods.
The modern
lumbering system as contrasted with the old fashioned method of
conducting the industry may be said to have commenced during the
’50’s and its development was aided by the changes in the law and
regulations above noted and by further advances in the same
direction introduced in 1851. In that year ground rent on limits was
imposed, the principle being generally favored by practical
lumbermen as the most effective means of preventing the
monopolization of unworked limits. The ground rent was mixed at
fifty cents a. square mile in addition to the dues and it was
provided that this should be doubled for every year during which the
limits remained unworked. While the general principle of granting
limits to the first applicant, giving the preference to the previous
occupant in case he had complied with the regulations, was left
undisturbed, a modification was introduced by the provision that
upon rivers where the cost of surveys rendered it advisable, limits
might be disposed of at an upset price fixed by the Government, and
awarded to the highest bidder in case of competition, an important
move in the direction of the auction system as it now exists. All
sawlogs cut for exportation were made liable to double rates of
duty. This latter clause was the result of an agitation which had
sprung up even at that early day against the shipment abroad of logs
in an unmanufactured state.
During the
continuance of the union, Ontario participated in the same laws and
regulations as Quebec. These gradually grew more stringent during
the first ten years and in 1851 had reached the beginning of the
system at present in use in both Provinces^
AN INQUIRY AS TO
TIMBER REGULATIONS.
In 1854 a committee
was appointed to review the whole question of timber regulations.
One of the snags which it endeavored to uproot was the cutting of
timber by bogus settlers. The settler was required to pay down only
one-tenth of the purchase price, and these bogus settlers, after
having cut and sold the merchantable timber refused to pay the other
nine installments. One solution offered was that the land should be
sold only for cash; while another was that timber dues should be
applied to the purchase of the land. This plan was open to serious
objections in that the price of the land was not equal to the dues,
and the squatter or settler it was desirable to get at, was never,
at the critical time, where the Government could put its finger on
him.
The adoption of
reciprocity between the United States and Canada in 1854, which
secured free exchange in natural products, including "'lumber, gave
an impetus to the sawn lumber trade, and the trade in square timber
declined. .This condition was discussed by the committee of 1854,
and led leading men to urge the Government to speed the parting
guest by reducing the dues on sawn lumber as 'compared with hewn.
They did this on the ground that square timber caused a great waste,
only the best sticks being used and only a portion of them. Large
parts of the tree that could be worked up in taking out sawlogs were
left to decay in the bush and to increase the danger of forest
fires. It was estimated that three-fourths more of the tree was used
for sawlogs than for square timber, and returns to the Government
(owing to the greater number of feet produced) would be three times
as muc^/in the former case as in the latter. No difference appears
to have been made and the square timber trade declined through
natural causes.
The difference
between the Canadian and the United States methods of holding land
was dealt with by the committee. The exposition of American methods
before the committee went to convince it that, whatever the fault in
Canadian methods of handling timber lands, they were to be preferred
to those in vogue in the United States. The gentleman who explained
to the committee the American system was Jonathan R. White, of
Michigan. He said the United States wild forest lands were thrown
open by proclamation and sold to the highest bidder at an upset
price of $1.25 an acre. Lands not sold were open for sale at the
upset price, and there was no limit to the amount any man could
hold. Mr. White thought the system a very good one, getting the land
rapidly under taxation and saving the timber, which under stumpage
system was always more or less wasted. The fact that the land was of
little value agriculturally was all the more reason for getting rid
of it. The Canadian witnesses took issue with Mr. White, claiming
the result of the introduction of that system into Canada would be
to place the best timber lands in the hands of capitalists or
companies who would exact toll on those who went in actually to work
the land or cut the timber. The dues on two trees of very ordinary
size, seventy-five feet, at a foot, would amount to $1.50, or more
than the price of $1.25 an acre at which the land was sold in the
United States. But an acre of well timbered land produced five times
that amount of dues. This was considering the pine only, and the
other woods and the land would still remain to the Government and
these would always be worth something.
The wisdom of the
Canadian view has been proved, because it keeps the unarable lands
in the hands of the Government to license and relicense at ever
increasing prices to the lumbermen, and to be reforested without let
or hindrance, now that the country and trade is reaching the stage
where this method is practicable. Even at the time of the com'
mittee of 1854 the idea of an annual crop of timber from a permanent
forest was put forward. Fire prevention was discussed also and the
lumbermen held then as they do today that the best way to prevent
fires was to prevent squatting in forests, and to confine
settlements wholly to agricultural. It was pointed out that
scattered settlement on odd bits of land in the midst of pine
forests was of no permanent value to the settlers, and by reason of
starting fires was ruinous to the lumbermen. Attention was also
called to the fact that in Ontario the arable and pine land lay in
belts in such relation to each other that the development of timber
provided a good market for the farmers and thus helped the
development of the agricultural portions.
The regulations of
1855 chiefly affirmed the right of the Government to make any
changes it desired in ground rent and the conditions of license, in
other words, the license conveyed no vested rights. The growing
nature of the industry is shown in receipts for ground rents, timber
dues and slide dues. These were: 1856, $262,872; 1857, $289,839;
1858, $232,624; 1859, $316,656. In the regulations of 1860 further
steps were taken to stop the squatters, the most effective being a
plan of survey to determine what districts should be thrown open to
settlement. To prevent the shipping of lumber cut by trespassers on
Crown lands to the United States, all vessels previous to obtaining
a clearance were obliged to furnish the collector of customs with
evidence that the dues had been paid. It was pointed out that the
industry was one of the most important in the country. In seven
years, ended December 31, 1863, the exports from Upper and Lower
Canada amounted to $73,004,312, while the value of agricultural
products exported in those yyais amounted to only $49,951,961. March
17,1866, the reciprocity treaty with the United States expired and
on June 27 Canada put export duties on sawlogs and shingle bolts of
$1 a thousand and $1 a cord. |
