'j^-^* 
 
 (J«ilo!!t, 'Iowi\ , 
 
 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 
 
 HOW IT WAS BOUGHT BACK FROM THE LANDLORDS 
 By the Right Hon. HUGH C. E. CHILDERS 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY HERBERT RAILTON 
 
 1PAID a three months' visit to the 
 United States and Canada in the 
 autumn of 1874. During November I 
 spent a few days, as the guest of Lord 
 and Lady Dufferin, at Government House 
 (Rideau Hall), near Ottawa ; and the result 
 of some conversation with Lord Dufferin was 
 that, in the following March, he asked me if I 
 would undertake for the Dominion Govern- 
 ment, who were to contribute largely to the ex- 
 pense, the settlement of the difficult contro- 
 versy between the Government of Prince Ed- 
 ward Island and the owners of its soil, whom 
 it was proposed entirely to buy out. The 
 question appeared to me a very delicate one, 
 but it was thought that, coming fresh from the 
 Irish Land Bill debates in Parliament, I might 
 
 have some special advantages in working out 
 its solution. I telegraphed that I consented 
 to act, provided that I was not expected to 
 remain more than six or seven weeks in the 
 island. To this condition assent was given, 
 and in July I reached the provincial capital, 
 remaining till the second week of Sep- 
 tember. 
 
 In that time I settled the ten leading 
 cases, and my successor had no difficulty in 
 completing the entire task, within a reason- 
 able time. Some particulars of this very 
 curious operation, the compulsory transfer of 
 the entire land of a colony from a small 
 number of proprietors (chiefly absentees) to 
 several thousand tenants, may perhaps prove 
 of interest. 
 
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 
 
 841 
 
 The colony, now province, of Prince 
 Edward Island, containing about 120,000 
 inhabitants, lies, in the form of a crescent, 
 within the (iulf of St. Lawrence. It is 
 something under 150 miles in length, and 
 contains over a million acres of arable and 
 pasture land. Cobbett, who had never been 
 there, spoke very disparagingly of its agricul- 
 tural resources ; but the " rascally heap of 
 sand, rock and swamp," as he describes it, is 
 one of the most fertile parts of the Canadian 
 Dominion. Part of it is well-wooded, and 
 many miles of the coast line arc singularly 
 picturesque. It was originally colonised by 
 the French, who called it St. Jean, as it had 
 been first seen by Cabot on St. John's Day ; 
 and its French character is marked even to 
 the present day by the descendants of the 
 
 large number of refugees from Aj/tdia who 
 migrated here at the time of the^'reaty of 
 Utrecht. But after the capture of Quebec, 
 it was occupied by a British force, and it 
 was ceded by France to Great Britain under 
 the Treaty of Fontainebleau in 1763. It 
 then contained above 4000 inhabitants, 
 living either on farms or at Port la Joie, the 
 site of the present capital called Charlotte- 
 town. Some years later the name of the 
 colony itself was changed to Prince Edward 
 Island (instead of New Ireland as previously 
 proposed) to commemorate the improved 
 military defence of the island, under the 
 orders of the Commander-in-Chief, H.R.H. 
 the Duke of Kent, father of Her Majesty 
 Queen Victoria. 
 
 One of the most extraordinary and prepos- 
 terous proposals ever submitted to a British 
 Executive was made in connection with the 
 land settlement of the colony. In 1763, 
 immediately after Great Britain came into 
 possession of the island. Lord Egmont, who 
 was at the time First Lord of the Admiralty, 
 petitioned the Crown to grant the whole 
 
 colony to him in perpetuity. It was 
 to be divided into fifty hundreds, ten 
 to go specially to himself and his 
 nine children, and forty to be held 
 under him by distinguished persons, 
 such as admirals, generals and 
 members of Parliament. These hundreds 
 were again to be each divided into twenty 
 manors, with Courts Baron and other feudal 
 institutions. Lord Egmont himself and each 
 of his Lords of Hundreds were to have strong 
 castles, armed with powerful cannon, to 
 which all the Lords of Manors and copy- 
 holders could resort in case of danger. 
 For three years Lord Egmont had sufii- 
 XXXVI— 59 
 
 
 cient political influence to press his plan on 
 his official colleagues, the Board of Trade 
 and Plantations. But at last the criticisms 
 to which it was subjected (one, it is said, 
 being penned by Junius's " Malagrida," Lord 
 Shelburne,) prevailed, and. Lord Egmont 
 having left the Admiralty a few months 
 previously, another scheme of settlement, 
 
944 
 
 GOOD WORDS 
 
 PRINCE EUWAUD ISLAND 
 
 almost as mischievous, received official 
 sanction. 
 
 In 1767 the island was divided into sixty- 
 six estates, three of which were reserved for 
 the Crown and for local improvements, sixty- 
 three being dis])osed of by a great lottery 
 held at the Board of Trade in London. To 
 the privilege of this lottery were admittetl 
 sixty-three persons of distinction, belonging, 
 for the most part, to the same classes as 
 those proposed by Lord Egmont ; and to 
 each of these the result of the lotteiy 
 assigned about 20,000 acres. Only two 
 conditions were annexed to these amazing 
 and fortuitous grants ; the jxayment of a 
 small Quit • Mit of from two to six shillings a 
 year per hund.ed acres, and the obligation 
 to introduce a certain number of foreign 
 Protestant settlers. Failing to comply with 
 these conditions within a stated number of 
 years, the proprietors were to be subject to 
 the forfeiture of their grants. 
 
 Of course these conditions were not com- 
 plied with. The foreign Protestants, as a 
 rule, were not introduced ; and the Quit 
 rents were not paid. For instance, it was 
 officially reported in 1797, long after the 
 entire settlement ought to have been com- 
 pleted, that not a single emigrant had been 
 seitled on twenty-three of the sixty-three 
 estates and very few on eighteen others ; 
 and the non-fulfilment of the condition, as to 
 the religion of the emigrants, may be 
 gathered from the fact that, by the last 
 census, nearly half of the inhabitants of the 
 
 colony were returned as 
 Roman Catholics. In 
 fact, the Royal Com- 
 mission of 1 860 reported 
 that to no material extent 
 were the early settlers 
 foreign Protestants. This 
 neglect on the part of 
 the proprietors, especially 
 as to the (^>uit rents, led, 
 as might be expected, to 
 popular agitation. At 
 last, in 1802, the Quit 
 rent arrears were, by a 
 special Act, ordered to 
 be commuted ; but the 
 commuted arrears were 
 not paid. In 1833 these 
 arrears reached 750,000 
 dollars, as against 30,000 
 dollars actually paid since the foundation of 
 the colony. I'etween 1833 and 1851 nothing 
 effeitual appears to have been done to enforce 
 the payments due by the proprietors. 
 
 This neglect, while on the one hand very 
 inconvenient to the (jovernmcnt, which lost 
 a large proportion of the Public Revenue, 
 was far more prejudicial to the people of the 
 colony. They shared the universal senti- 
 ment of their neighbours on the American 
 continent in favour of a freehold tenure. 
 This sentiment was enhanced by the con- 
 sciousness that in Prince Edward Island the 
 grants to the sixty-three landlords, among 
 whom the colony was originally divided, were 
 grossly improvident, and that the conditions, 
 sul)ject to which the estates were granted, 
 had not been enforced ; so that immigration 
 and settlement had been checked, if not 
 entirely stopped. In fact, in most cases, the 
 proprietors could not make a Title even if 
 they were willing to sell, \^'hat the tenants 
 sought was not so much to enforce particular 
 prices at which they might purchase their 
 holdings, as to secure the power of purchas- 
 ing them at some price. 
 
 So far back as in 1797, this indulgence to 
 the proprietors had been bitterly complained 
 of by the House of Assembly, and the com- 
 plaint was renewed in 1805, but all to no 
 avail. To any one now reading the parlia- 
 mentary papers it appears almost incredible 
 that until, in 1836, Lord Durham described 
 in strong language ihe misdoings of the 
 absentee proprietors, and the reckless im- 
 
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 
 
 843 
 
 providence of the Imperial Government, 
 nothing was really done. He said that the 
 absentees " held the colony as a sort of 
 reversionary interest whi';h required no 
 present attention " ; that " they would neither 
 improve the land themselves nor let others 
 improve it," but kept it in a " state of wilder- 
 ness " ; that " although the people, their 
 representative assembly, the Legislative 
 Council, and the Governor had cordially 
 concurred in devising a remedy, all their 
 efforts had been in vain." The influence of 
 the absentee proprietors (it could not be, 
 said Lord Durham, that of "equity or 
 reason ") had steadily counteracted in 
 London the " wishes of all classes in the 
 colony." 
 
 Lord Durham's warning, however, was 
 entirely neglected, and the dispatch from 
 which I have quoted, was not even com- 
 municated to the Colonial Legislature. 
 
 In 185 1 Responsible Government was 
 established in Prince Edward Island, as in 
 other colonics ; and the debts to the Crown 
 became debts to the Colonial Government. 
 The fi.at result of this change was the 
 purchase "k Taniiable," by the colony, of 
 some of the proprietors' estates (notably of 
 Lord Selkirk's), and this was followed by a 
 proposal to inquire by means of a com- 
 mission into a plan for giving each tenant 
 the right to buy out the proprietor's interest 
 in his holding. But this failed; and after 
 lengthened negotiation a powerful Royal 
 Commission, one of the members of which 
 was that eminent colonial statesman, Mr. 
 Joseph Howe, was appointed to consider the 
 
 whole question. The Assembly of the island 
 having agreed to abide by the Commission's 
 decision, which the leading proprietors also 
 promised to accept, it was hoped that the 
 controversy would be at an end. 
 
 The Commission, in their Report, awardc-d 
 terms for the purchase of all the estates, but 
 with a reserve for arbitration in many cases. 
 They provided for all the subsidiary questions 
 involved, including especially the arrears of 
 Quit rent, as well as of rents due by the 
 tenants to the jiroprietors. 
 
 But the work of the Commission came to 
 nothing. It was alleged that they had been 
 appointed to "settle "the differences relating 
 to the rights of landowners and tenants " on 
 just and equitable principles," hut that, 
 instead of tliis they had provided that if the 
 landlord declined to accept the amount of 
 purchase money tendered by the tenant, that 
 amount should be subject to arbitration ; and 
 the leading proprietors strongly objected 
 that, though willing to abide by the award 
 of the Commission itself, they had not con- 
 sented, and would not consent, to accept the 
 award of unknown arbitrators appointed by 
 the Commission. The Colonial Secretary 
 (the Duke of Newcastle), under the pressure 
 of the proprietors' agents in London, weakly 
 sustained them in this objection, and the 
 Report of the Commission became a dead 
 letter. 
 
 I pass over the proceedings of the Legis- 
 lature and the Government on this subject 
 between 1861 and 1874, except to say that 
 during those years fourteen properties were 
 sold to the Government under private agree- 
 
 
 ,*' 
 
 Vu 
 
 
 
844 
 
 GOOD WORDS 
 
 ments. The most notable of these sales was 
 that of the estates belonj^ing to Sir ICdward 
 ('unard, and Mr. 'VilHam Cunard. Sir Henry 
 Walsh and Sir lirahani Montgomery were 
 also sellers. IJut during tiiese years several 
 attempts were made by the Legislature, 
 supporting the general view of the occupiers, 
 to settle the (juestion, but without success. 
 Meanwhile a second great constitutional 
 change took effect. The Confederation Act 
 made Prince Edward Island a province of 
 the Dominion of Canada, and substituted 
 the Governor-General, for the Colonial Office, 
 as the authority to allow or disallow the 
 legislation of the province. In 1874 the 
 (now Provincial) Legislature of the island 
 passed a new Bill for compulsorily buying 
 out the proprietors' interests. lUit tiie 
 Dominion Government pointed out to Lord 
 Dufferin, the Governor-General, that it did 
 not provide for an impartial arbitration in 
 which the proprietors would have a represen- 
 tative voice ; and Lord Dufferin disallowed 
 the Bill. In a subsequent dispatch, however, 
 he reported to Lord Carnarvon, then Colonial 
 Secretary, that a new Bill had been jjassed 
 providing for an independent Commission, 
 by which each of the proprietors' estates 
 would be valued, and that he proposed to 
 assent to this Bill. The proprietors would 
 name one member, the Local Government 
 another, and he himself the third ; and he 
 added that I had agreed to be Chairman of 
 the Commission, and to retain the chair long 
 enough to adjudicate upon the principal 
 estates, especially those held by English pro- 
 prietors. 
 
 In spite of vehement opposition from the 
 landlords, the Home Government approved 
 of Lord Dufferin's proceedings, and I left for 
 Charlotte Town in the course of the summer 
 of 1875. 
 
 My wife and I arrived at that very pretty 
 place in the latter part of July. We were 
 received by the Governor, Sir Robert Hodg- 
 son, who had insisted upon our staying at 
 Government House during the proceedings 
 of the Commission. I found that my two 
 colleagues would be Dr. Jenkins, a member 
 of the Assembly, and (for most of the cases) 
 Mr. Haliburton, a son of the judge well 
 known as "Sam Slick," both of them most 
 agreeable and well-informed gentlemen. We 
 spent a few days in settling preliminaries and 
 formalities, which were somewhat tiresome, 
 
 as there were no precedents to guide us. But 
 we h.id tile assistance of the law officers, and 
 above all of the Governor, who, having been 
 Chief Justice, was invaluable as an adviser. 
 We then devoted our entire time until the 
 middle of August to visiting the proprietors' 
 estates, the greater i)art of which were within 
 reach of one or other of the stations on the 
 railway, a well-managed narrow-gauge system 
 of nearly 200 miles. 
 
 On the 1 6th of August I opened the 
 Court. Our proceedings took the form of 
 an action at law, in which the Commissioner 
 of Crown Lands was plaintiff and die several 
 proprietors defendai.ts. We had before us 
 a bar of eight or nine counsel, including an 
 eminent Q.C. from New Brunswick, who 
 was, however, taken ill on the first day and 
 only addressed us once. Our great anxiety 
 was to establish that the proceedings were 
 not political, and in this we succeeded. We 
 sat for sixteen days from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., 
 and in that time we dealt with the ten lead- 
 ing cases. On the 4th of September we 
 formulated our awards in those cases. They 
 dealt with above 180,000 acres, to be bought 
 for nearly 370,000 dollars. 
 
 Later in the month I left Charlotte Town, 
 and a few days afterwards my place on the 
 Commission was taken by Lieut. -Governor 
 Wilmot from Nova Scotia. 
 
 But the most serious troubles then began. 
 Two of the proprietors, affected by our 
 awards, ap[)ealed against them to the Supreme 
 Court of the province. The pleadings were 
 very formal and technical, but the main 
 objection was that we did not set out in our 
 awards sufficient detail. Of course it could 
 not be stated that the form of the awards 
 had been settled by the former Chief Justice, 
 but I do not think that this would have | 
 influ fenced the Court, whose very lengthy 
 judgments setting aside our awards were 
 entirely in favour of the landlords. 
 
 Whether the abolition of landlordism has 
 been an unmixed good, I do not pretend to 
 determine. If I live to pay an eighth visit 
 to North America, I may have an oppor- 
 tunity of collecting opinions on this point. 
 Anyho v, the complete agrarian transforma- 
 tion through which Prince Edward Island 
 has passed afTords much instructive material 
 for reflection. 
 
 For the success of that transformation the 
 main credit is due to Lord Dufferin ; who, after 
 half a century of failures by less determined 
 statesmen, both in Downing Street and in 
 Canada, seized the favourable opportunity 
 and brought about an agrarian revolution 
 almost unobserved outside the Dominion.