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30 OUR ISLAND STORY

them nothing. It was stated that only the proprietors of town- ships 18, 21, 28, 51, 54, 56, 52, 57 and 59 interested themselves in obtaining immigrants or took any part in the development of the country’s resources. They waited until, by the labor of their tenants and the increase of population, there was increase of values, and then they made terms with the immigrants and others who were compelled to cut down the forest, clear the land and further improve the conditions by which their estates were sur- rounded. Their’s was the “unearned increment.”

But the tenants were not all thrifty,and many of those who were both thrifty and honest, suffered unavoidable losses or were otherwise unfortunate. Some were unable, many neglected, to pay the rent. Upon the grounds of justice it was hard for the pioneer tenants to see why they should pay money, obtained by “sweat of brow,” in circumstances of poverty and difficulty, to absentee proprietors who had given nothing and done nothing for their properties. So arrears of rent accumulated.

On the other hand the proprietors’ agents were not all reason- able or humane. Distraint for rent was, in many. cases,made by process of law. The consequence was continuous agitation on the part of the tenants and those who sympathised with them. It is stated that early in the Settlement of Bay Fortune an agent named Able was killed by an infuriated tenant.

Throughout a long series of years, the Legislature and Government were petitioned, Acts of the Legislature were passed, deputations of the leading public men represented the grievances of the tenantry to the authorities in London,—-—-all in vain. Some influence other than that of reason or equity,always intervened to thwart the efforts of those who espoused the cause of the ten- antry and sought to promote the peace and welfare of the country.

At length Sir Charles Fitzroy, when Lieutenant Governor, was moved to address a circular to the proprietors, to the Secre- tary of State for the Colonies, and to others interested, pointing out that “no one unacquainted with the circumstances of a new colony could form a correct estimate of the difficulties and pri- vations a settler had to encounter.” Sir Charles stated further

that for many years the tenant could make only a bare subsis- .

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