eded and the public
interests to be very inefficiently conserved. The whole administrative
system of the Province was disorganized. The contest was very unequal,
for the Government could frequently command a majority of votes in the
Assembly. The minority in that House smarted under a sense of tyranny
and injustice, and felt that they were of no weight in the body politic.
That sense of dignity which is imparted by a consciousness of
contributing to the formation of public policy and opinion was wanting.
Not only were the benefits arising from a proper organization of labour
altogether lost, but the antagonism between the two factors in political
life was so great that they to a large extent neutralized each other.
The Upper House had no weight with the people; the Lower House had no
weight with the Crown.

One of the greatest drawbacks to the country's prosperity was the method
of granting public lands. It had been the policy of Governor Simcoe to
encourage immigration from the United States, as well as from Great
Britain and continental Europe. He had offered great inducements, in the
shape of free grants of wild lands, to persons settling in Upper Canada,
and his offer had produced the expected results in the shape of a full
tide of immigrants. He had, however, exercised a rigid personal
supervision over these grants, and had done his utmost to prevent the
abuse of his bountiful regulations. His successors were less scrupulous,
and being, as has been seen, under the control of greedy and selfish
persons, they permitted the public lands to be used as means of
enriching and corrupting the favourites of the Administration. The
land-granting department was honeycombed by jobbery and corruption.
Grants of five thousand acres were made to each member of the Executive
Council, and of twelve hundred acres to each of their children. Similar
grants were made to certain favoured members of the Legislative Council
and their children.[35] Numerous other personages who could command
sufficient influence at Court obtained grants of twelve hundred acres
each. The extent of an ordinary grant was two hundred acres. From the
creation of the Province down to 1804 these donations were unattended by
any cost whatever to the grantees beyond trifling fees to the officials
for their trouble in passing the entries through the office books. The
privilege of obtaining landed estates for nothing was abused to such an
extent, however, that the Ho