No sooner did emigrants from Great Britain begin to pour into Upper Canada, so as to afford a prospect of the wild lands becoming saleable, than a system of land speculation was resorted to by many of the old colonists.  This land speculation has no doubt enriched many individuals, but more than any other abuse has it retarded the natural progress of the country, and the interests of the many have thus been sacrificed to those of the few.  Almost all other speculations may be said, in one shape or another, to do good; but land speculation has been an unmitigated curse to Canada, because it occasions a monopoly of the soil, and prevents it from being cleared and rendered productive, until the speculators can obtain their own price for it.

The lands granted to soldiers and sailors who had served in Canada, and those granted to the U.E. loyalists, were bought up, often at merely nominal prices, from the original grantees and their children, and sold again with an immense profit to new settlers from the old country, or retained for many years in an unproductive state.  A portion of the lands granted to the U.E. loyalists was, of course, occupied by the heads of families; but the lands to which their children became entitled, under the same benevolent provision of the government, were generally drawn in remote situations.  By far the larger portion of these grants, however, were not located or rendered available by the grantees, but remained in the shape of U.E. rights, which were purchased at very low prices by the speculators.  These U.E. rights were bought at the rate of 1s. 3d., 2s. 6d., or 3s. 9d. per acre; and it was by no means uncommon for old soldiers to sell one hundred acres of land for two or three dollars, or even for a bottle of rum, so little value did they set on such grants in the then state of Canada.  These grants, though well meant, and with respect to the U.E.  Loyalists, perhaps, unavoidable, have been most injurious to the country.

The great error in this matter, and which could have been avoided, was the opening of too great an extent of land at once for settlement.  A contrary system, steadily pursued, would have produced a concentrated population; and the resources of such a population would have enabled the colonists, by uniting their labour and capital, to make the means of communication, in some degree, keep pace with the settlement of the lands; and Upper Canada would now have been as well provided with canals and railroads as the United States.  The same abuses, no doubt, existed formerly to as great an extent in that country, but, being longer settled, it has outgrown the evil.  Enough has been said on this subject to show some of the causes which have retarded improvements in Canada.

Another chief cause of the long and helpless torpor in which the country lay, was the absence of municipal governments in the various rural localities.  It indeed seems strange, that such a simple matter as providing the means of making roads and bridges by local assessment could not have been conceded to the people, who, if we suppose them to be gifted with common sense, are much more capable of understanding and managing their own parish business, than any government, however well disposed to promote their interests.