appointing Messrs. J. Alphonse Ouimet, Barrister (since appointed Judge), of Montreal, Quebec; Thomas McKay, of Prince Albert, N.W.T.; and Henry Muma, of Drumbo, Ontario, as Royal Commissioners to investigate and report on the claims.

The Commissioners assembled at Winnipeg on the 11th March, 1886, and after transacting some routine business left for Prince Albert on the 17th of the same month, at which point they began their sittings for reception of claims and the hearing of evidence on the 29th of that month. From that date until the 30th June, 1886, the Commissioners were busily engaged at Prince Albert, Battleford, Calgary and Qu'Appelle in their investigation and enquiries. Sittings of the Commission for the convenience of claimants were also held in Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal, at which latter point the Commissioners considered the evidence and information already received, corresponded with the claimants, and generally completed the work on hand. The report of the Commission was completed and handed in to yourself on the 4th July, 1887. The following extracts from that report may be of use as a summary of the important work entrusted to and discharged by the Commission :

Immediately on receipt of the report of the Commission, the audit of the awards was proceeded with by the Auditor General, the cheques were issued by the Finance Department, and forwarded through this Department to our various Land Agents in the west for distribution; except in the case of the Prince Albert cheques, which were entrusted to Mr. Thomas McKay for delivery to the parties entitled. Some few of the claimants have, since the forwarding of these cheques, been absent

from home, on hunting, trading or freighting trips, and their cheques have not as yet been delivered, but with this trifling exception the payments have all been completed and the receipts returned to this Department.

To more clearly explain the awards as made by the Commisioners, I have had the following statement prepared, showing the consequential and other reductions, as made on the various classes into which the claims were divided:

From which statement, it will be observed that in reality a very small reduction has been made from the claims of loyal settlers which were of a nature permitting them to be considered. The apparently large reduction of $725,013.92 is shown to have been due only in a small measure to the action of the Commissioners with reference to prices and quantities. The amounts disallowed under the various headings are of such a nature and arose from such causes as to leave the Commissioners, with the information they had, no alternative but to act as they did. For the purpose of explaining more fully the line of "consequential reductions," I submit herewith a statement showing how that amount has been arrived at by the Commission :—

As soon as the fact became public that the Commission had completed its work, enquires and applications for information commenced to pour into the Department from individual claimants. I therefore applied to you to be allowed to retain the services of Captain George H. Young, the Secretary of the late Commission, for as long as might be necessary, to assist in answering correspondence on this subject. In accordance with that request an Order in Council was passed on 21st October, 1887, giving the desired authority and the Department has therefore in its communications with claimants had the advantage of Captain Young's special knowledge of the circumstances of each case. The total amount that has been paid out to date, through this Department, on the awards of the Rebellion Losses Commissioners, is as follows:

By special warrants, 1885 and 1886......
By vote of Parliament, 1887.........

Total.........

$132,191 35

483,700 07

$615,891 42

The claims, which have been settled by the payment of the awards, come from all points of the North-West Territories, commencing east as far as Cumberland House, reaching to the north as far as Waterhen Lake, to the west as far as Lac la Biche and Edmonton, and to the south as far as the International Boundary Line. The total number of cases dealt with by both the Commissions was 1,093.

COLONIZATION COMPANIES.

Since the date of the report for last year, a settlement, of which the outlines were then given, has been completed with all the Colonization Companies except the Temperance Colonization Society, who have never signified any desire to terminate their agreement with the Government, Mr. Patrick Purcell and the Shell River Colonization Company.

SCHOOL LANDS.

As set forth in the report of the Commissioner of Dominion Lands, it was arranged in the course of last summer, between this Department and the Government of Manitoba, that a series of sales of school lands should be held this winter, and accordingly sales were held on the following dates at the respective places mentioned:

The following table shows the number of acres sold, the amount realized, the average price per acre, and the maximum and minimum prices per acre; from which it will be seen that if the remainder of the school lands in Manitoba and the same class of lands in the North-West Territories could be relied upon to bring, at the proper time, equivalent prices, the liberality of this educational endowment would be difficult to exaggerate :—

NOTE. The return of the Minnedosa sale, which took place on the 7th instant, has not yet been received.

It is difficult to believe that any portion of a civilized and intelligent community would fail to sympathize with the aims and objects of the Government in providing this endowment, far less that they should interpose their petty, selfish

interests to prevent the consummation of so desirable an object; yet such would appear to be the fact. With millions of acres of the best class of agricultural land Manitoba and the North-West open for legitimate homestead and pre-emption entry, it has nevertheless happened that individual settlers, well knowing the provisions of the law under which and the purposes for which school lands have been reserved from sale and settlement, have squatted upon these lands; and it would even appear that in some cases they have combined to prevent the legitimate sale of these lands for the noble purpose for which they have been set aside, although an arrangement was arrived at with Mr. Norquay, the late Prime Minister of the Province, under which the value of all bond fide improvements made upon school lands by actual settlers, notwithstanding that such actual settlement and improvements were in defiance of the law, should be paid by the purchaser of the said land to the settler if the purchaser were any person other than the settler. This should be sufficient to meet the equities of the case and the expectations of all reasonable persons interested.

REPATRIATION OF CANADIANS.

There is a strong probability of an extensive movement amongst Canadians settled in Dakota to return to Manitoba and the North-West. The Department has recently been in communication with Mr. Duncan Sinclair, a Dominion Lands Surveyor, a gentleman who is well known to the public, not only of the NorthWest, but of the Ottawa region of the Province of Ontario as well who with his family left Manitoba for Dakota several years ago, because, as he says, in a letter dated the 20th ultimo, he and his sons were discouraged by the summer frosts which occurred two or three years in succession, and because "of the establishment of the Canadian Pacific Railway monopoly." As to the frosts he states his conviction that care on the part of farmers will enable them to escape the effects of them in the future; and while expressing the hope that the Canadian Pacific Railway monopoly will be modified, he says: "We find railway monopoly as grasping here as in any part of Canada." He further says:

"The terrible blizzards which we have had for the last three weeks have sickened me of the country more than anything else. It is a hard thing to be on the prairies of this country without shelter of trees, and it is sad to think that so many people in this Territory have lost their lives in the snow storms. The Canadian settlers of this Territory are now in a poverty stricken condition, all their pre-empted lands are mortgaged to the capitalists to pay the Government price, and their cattle are held under chattel mortgage for small sums, at short periods, bearing 50 per cent. interest, payable to the pawnbrokers, who euphoniously call themselves 'bankers.' I have recently thought of sending you two or three letters, giving you some reasons why Canadians should go to their own North-West, rather than here. Under any circumstances the Canadian Government will not have to wait long until the United States lands shall have been exhausted, then Canadian and European emigrants must settle in the Canadian North-West and in the backwoods of Ontario.