No. 1. LOWER CANADA. Report on Emigration. 12 Dec. 183;;. 20 CORRESPONDENCE RESPECTING EMIGRATION. I shall be exceeding glad to be honoured with a reply, and assuring you of my best exer- tions to aid your plans for the prosperity of Lower Canada, I remain, & c. To the Hon. Ceo. Moffatt, & c. ( signed) A. C." Buchanan, Chief Ao- ent Com1 B. A. L. Compy. REPLY of the Honourable the Commissioners of the Land Company to Mr. Buchanan's Letter of 29 July last. Office of the British American Land Company, Sir, Montreal, 19 August 1835. INFORMATION of your intended visit to Sherbrooke did not reach this office until it had become too late to communicate with you at that place, or to offer you the civilities which 1 should otherwise have been happy to tender. I beg now, however, to acknowledge the valuable suggestions contained in your letter of the 29th ultimo, and to state that they have received the fullest consideration, as being the result of a long course of experience, attended by a well- known earnest desire to forward the true interest of the province, as well as those of the emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland who yearly arrive on its shores. The personal knowledge which you now have had an opportunity of acquiring in respect to the company's proceedings in the neighbourhood of Sherbrooke, and the information which your visit to that place has put in your possession regarding the situation of the labouring classes, will I trust fully corroborate the statement made to you at La Baie by Mr. Yarwood on the part of the company, and lead, if possible, still further to satisfy you that a favourable recommendation of the eastern townships generally may with safety be made to all persons whose object is the obtaining of lands for settlement, with employment to such an extent as will enable them to support their families, and to pay the instalments of their purchase- money during the period which must elapse before returns from the soil produced by their own labour can be realized. You will have ascertained that the rate of 2 s. 6c?. per diem is paid by the company's officers to every able- bodied labourer who may find himself unable to procure higher wages elsewhere, and that subsistence is furnished in addition. This rate of wages is fully secured to all parties applying, and is paid weekly in money. The company further is responsible for the correctness of this statement. Although at the time when the roads now in progress were proposed it was thought advisable to have them erected by contract, a considerable extent of one of them was reserved to be opened by day labour, expressly with the view of checking all attempts at monopoly and the establishment of compulsory rates of wages by the contractors. The fact that a much larger proportion of the labourers on the roads are found in the employ of the contractors than in- that of the company proves that industrious men can find means of earning not only 2 s. Gd. per day, but a rate considerably above it. The period for which employment is engaged to be afforded extends to the close of the season; at that time such work as that of road- making must necessarily cease. But the little comparative effect which the winter produces in lowering the ordinary rates of wages in the townships shows that the demand for labour is not by any means suspended during that season of the year. The preparation and marketing of grain, the drawing of other produce to market, the chopping and drawing of fuel, timber for export, and for supplying the saw- mills, with many other employments, afford to the labourer the means, if not of adding to his funds, at least of supporting himself and his family in great comfort. The preparations which are required to be made in bringing into condition for settlement so extensive a tract of land as that which the company possess in the St. Francis territory, have unavoidably delayed the publication of the terms on which lands there may be obtained, or the expectations which may reasonably be held out to industrious labourers, even without capital, to proceed with their families to become settlers. 1 beg, however, now to state that a road line has been surveyed and laid out from the present settlements in Eaton, extending through Bury to the great falls of the Salmon River, where it is proposed to form a village. The lands through which this line passes being wholly the company's property, are laid out in lots of 20 chains or a quarter mile breadth, which will be disposed of to actual settlers only at 6 s. 3 d. or one dollar and a quarter per acre, one- fifth payable in cash, and the remainder ' in six years. The road will be made at the company's expense. A sleigh track being about to be commenced immediately, and the remainder of the work being proposed to be executed next summer, portions of land, from 50 acres upwards, will be open for purchase, and as settlers without capital will probably find this quantity sufficient to commence with, a very trifling proportion of the wages which they may earn will cover the amount of the several instalments into which their purchase- money will be divided. Fifty acres at 6 s. 3 d. amounting to 15/. 12s. Gd.; one- fifth, or 3 I. 2s. Gd., will be 25 days' wages, at 2 s. Gd. each. Subsequent annual instalments, amounting to 2 /. 1 s. 8d., will be covered by 17 days' wages at the same rate. This statement will, it is conceived, be found almost sufficient to obviate the necessity of entering into the merits of your suggestion respecting the erection of dwellings for the lodgment of labourers. But should there appear reason to look for a very large influx of emigrants, and should there appear to be a want of accommodation, or a doubt as r