Act of Settlement 1701

“ This view is made still clearer by the fact that the next succeeding section of the act of 1843 does introduce distinctly, as a new and separate provision, the requirements that settlers on the land not yet proclaimed for sale are required to make a similar declaration, within three months from the time of settlement, on pain of forfeiting their pre-emption right in favor of the next actual settler, but making no provision whatever for the case of two declarations by the same party on different tracts of land. ”

“ One is, that the honorable gentlemen are anxious for a settlement. But are there materials for a settlement in the Bill before us? How, for instance, can you settle the grouping? If you retain the principle on which the Government act, that of grouping those boroughs that have already members, you may do a little better than they have done, because they seem to have gone gratuitously wrong; but you cannot make an effective measure of it, and one that would stand. I am convinced that it would generate far more inequality than it seeks to remove. ”

“ All that is necessary is that the people should have an opportunity of getting on the land. With regard to the Land Settlement scheme, as a County Councillor I have had something to do with putting this Act into force. What are the facts? We were told that there were £8,000,000 set aside for this purpose. So far as my County Council is concerned—and I think we stand second in the country for putting the Small Holdings and Allotments Act into force—we were told that we were to have this money to purchase land. ”

“ That case, however, did not require that the precise meaning of the term should be fixed, and the Court is disposed to think, that a settlement made on the land by another person, who cultivated it for the proprietor, would be sufficient; though the proprietor should not reside in person on the estate, or within the territory. Had the settlement proved by Williams, been made at the day required by the Cession Act, it would, we think, have satisfied the requisition of that Act, and entitled the plaintiffs in error to the benefit of the condition. ”

“ Such a condition made it practically impossible for any poor man to gain a settlement by forty days’ residence, unless his tenement were of the value of £10 a year, but the Act allowed an immigrant to obtain a settlement in any one of four ways; (1) by paying the parish taxes; (2) by executing a public annual office in the parish; (3) by serving an apprenticeship in the parish; (4) by being hired for a year’s service in the parish. ”

“ He asked Parliament to pass a Land Settlement Bill, empowering the Government to purchase properties from private individuals, either by agreement in the ordinary course of business, or by compulsory methods under the Public Works Act. He described his scheme as an attempt to turn the depression to the colony’s advantage, meaning that large landowners were then inclined to sell at cheap rates, while many people with small means would gladly take up moderate sized sections if easy terms could be arranged. ”

“ Neither the act of 1857 nor the act of 1855 refers to the act of 1841. The act of 1857 requires the account with each state to be settled on 'the same principles of allowance and settlement as prescribed' in the act of 1855. ”

“ To complete the statutory machinery it is desirable that persons should be nominated by the settlement trustees for the purposes of the acts. Since the Conveyancing Act 1881, provisions for the protection of jointresses or persons entitled under settlements to rent charges or annual sums issuing out of the land are no longer required, as all such persons have now powers of distress and entry, and of limiting terms to secure their respective interests. ”

“ By the terms of the act of 1862, the right to settlement and pre-emption is to exist only in case that the lands are not 'sold or disposed of' within three years after the entire road shall have been completed. The lands need not be sold within the three years. ”

“ The claim of the settler under the homestead or the preemption laws is not, however, limited to lands subject to sale at private entry. Any unappropriated surveyed public land may, to a limited amount, be acquired under the former laws if the party entitled to enter under them will comply with the requirements they prescribe in regard to the residence and cultivation. The actual settler's preference right of purchase is even broader, and extends to lands which were unsurveyed at the time of his settlement. ”

“ Here hundred-acre lots, on a colonization road, are offered for sale at $1 the acre, one-fourth of the money to be paid on taking possession, and the remainder in four equal instalments.
For settlers with a little more capital, the government of New Brunswick has another proposition. A year or two ago a “Farm Settlement Board” of three commissioners was established by Act of Parliament, for the purpose of buying and improving suitable lands, erecting houses and farm buildings upon them, and selling them again to bonâ fide settlers upon easy terms, at cost price. ”

“ Where a settler is unable to begin his residence and settlement within the time allowed by law, he can dispose of the claim by relinquishing to the government and allowing some one else to enter. Nearly all the land throughout the central part of the county has been taken ”

“ Pre-emption or homestead claims might therefore be established after the passage of the land-grant statute, provided that this was done before the lands were withdrawn from settlement. [90] Indeed, the Secretary of the Interior ruled that settlement and occupation exempted land from the grant even though the settler failed formally to assert his claim. ”

“ If the land was to attain anything like its real value, settlers must be induced to occupy it. Of course it was possible to let the people go out as they pleased and take up land, and to let the Government collect from them as might be possible at a fixed rate. But experience during colonial days had shown the weakness of such a method, and Congress was apparently determined to keep under its own control the region which it now possessed, to provide for orderly sale, and to permit settlement only so far as it might not endanger the national interests. ”

“ If Congress did not intend thus to protect the occupancy of homestead settlers, the reference to lands being 'occupied by homestead settlers,' at date of definite location, was meaningless, and it was useless to reserve to the company the privilege of selecting lands in lieu of those lost by such occupancy. Congress knew, when passing the act of 1864, that one going west to establish his home could not know whether the unsurveyed land occupied by him would be an even-numbered or odd-numbered section. ”

“ Settled people tended to fear wandering people. Parishes sought to keep down their poor rates by devices such as removing mothers in labor lest the infant be born in the parish. So a statute was passed that a child born to a wandering woman may not have the place of birth as his settlement, but takes the same settlement as his mother. Another device to prevent others from establishing settlement in a parish was for its farmers to hire laborers for only fifty-one weeks. Also, some apprentices were bound by means other than indenture to avoid settlement. ”

“ As the law required full four years' residence by the person who claimed the grant, if no provision and been made for a continuance of his possession the land would have become vacant on his death and open for a new settlement by a new settler, if the law authorizing new settlements still remained in force. Hence it was provided that the possessory rights of a deceased settler should go to his heirs, and that they might get the land on making the requisite proof, without further residence and cultivation of their own. ”

“ As stated by the Circuit Court of Appeals, it does seem clear that mere property settlements, though incorporated into the decree, may not be modified pursuant to the reserved statutory powers of the court, contained in N.Y.Civil Practice Act §§ 1155, 1170. ”

“ Granting, for argument's sake, the correctness of the contention, it fails to justify the claim of the city, because law 10 does not specify the quantity of land to be enjoyed by a settlement made by individuals uniting for the purpose of settling a new town ”

“ It was not necessary that a man should become chargeable to the parish in order to effect his removal; it was enough that the authorities could assume that he might; become so; and it was not till 1795—in fact, till the reign of George III.—that this oppressive law was ameliorated, allowing working people to change their abode as they saw a better chance of employment elsewhere, so long as they did not come upon the parish.
The consequences of this new law of settlement were not long in showing themselves. ”

“ If there are trustees with power of sale, the purchase-money goes to the trustees, and if there are no such trustees then the tenant has to go to the Court of Chancery to get them appointed. The Act of 1882 was in fact a piece of tinkering, intended to bolster up the existing system by mitigating some of its worst effects instead of reforming it altogether. Of course the object of Settlements is to keep family estates unbroken. That is, the land is treated as an instrument for maintaining family dignity, instead of being treated as a source of national comfort and well-being. ”

“ It was assumed by French feudal law that in all cases when land was granted by a seigneur in subinfeudation the recipients would be bound to appear as members of a court of tenants for the settlement of conflicts in regard to land. A third source may be traced in the extension of the patrimonial justice of a person over his serfs and personal dependents to the classes of free and half-free population connected with the seigneurie in one way or another. There arose in consequence of these assumptions of jurisdiction a most bewildering confusion of tribunals and judicial rights. ”

“ The restriction of grants of land to those counties which may be prepared for location, will condense the inhabitants of the Settlement within proper bounds, and they will thus be enabled to render that mutual assistance and protection to each other, which, if they were more widely scattered, would be totally out of their power. ”