Notes on Land Policy

[ Farmer Breaking New Ground, 1880, Unknown, D.B. Weldon Library, University of Western Ontario Archvies AP5.C13 ]1 — Whereas the lands of any country are the inalienable heritage of the inhabitants of that country — an instrument provided by an all-wise and Beneficenet Providence for the physical sustenance of the people. Hence it is that the claim of landowners to the land is altogether such ordinate to the general policy of the state, as evidenced in Canada.

[...] 2 — and whereas it is the inalienable right and undisputed privilege of a free people to agitate for the combine and agitate for the redress of wrongs, the reform of abuses, and the melioration of the laws, whether such organization agitation be carried on by petition, by public meetings lawfully organized and peaceably conducted.

[...] 3 — And whereas an agitation is now going on in that part of the British Empire called Ireland with the avowed object of securing by peaceable and lawful means under the Constitution such a change in the land laws of that country a [and?] would cause a more equitable distribution of the land amongst the cultivators of the soil, and give them thereby a proportionately larger share of the fruits of their labor and industry than they could possibly enjoy under the present system of land by which the whole lands of the country have been alienated to a comparatively few persons and by which they enjoy a monopoly in land with all the [social?] influences for good or evil which that distribution privilege implies. [...]

Source: National Archives of Canada, John O. Hanley Fonds, MG29, B11, Vol. 20, File 5, Land Policy, John O. Hanley, Note on Land Policy, n.d..

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