The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-09-26 00:00:00

480111.11%

THE STOURI3RIDGE OBSERVER.

presented a somewhat uninviting aspect. They went
back to Canada and, of course, gave anything but a
glowing account of this really fine country, although
how far they could be considered judges would not be
a difficult question to decide. This is surely not the
class of men to carve out fortunes in any country, nor
could their defection be regarded in any other light
than as a gain.
I have somewhat digressed, but I feel it to be a duty
to caution a man who has never travelled against the
snares that beset him; and particularly must I draw
his attention to the one great one that will present
itself, and that is excessive drinking. This evil, if men
would but have the candour to confess it, is really the
great secret of the non-success ~f the emigrant. It is
not my province here to discuss this point, but I must
certainly give my settler a hint what to avoid if I wish
him to meet with success.
I have alluded above to the fact that most probably
the man has never travelled; let him remember this,—
it is the experience of all who have, -" that notlyg
can be found half so cheap and useful as politeness."
But to resume. The selection of the homestead is a
question upon which I would not venture to express an
opision ; the settler must be guided in this respect, as
I mentioned before, by his own judgment and taste. I
will simply tell him what settlements are already
formed and how he can learn what sections are open
for selection, then, for argument's sake, presume him
to have selected a wooded one, and then advise him
what to do. . .

The new settlements in the Province are at present
known as follows; they are contained in districts—three
in number : . • .

The first is Winnipeg, and the settlements formed
are Riviere Sale, Grasmere, Rockwood, Victoria,
greenwood, Prairie Grove, Springfield, Sunnyside,
Richland, Cook's Creek, Whitewold, Woodlands,
Poplar Heights, Ossowo, Simonet, Belcourt, and
Melbourne. .

The second district is Dufferin, named after the
present very popular Governor-General of Canada, and
consists at this time of three settlements—Dufferin,
Clear Spring, and Boyne. . .

The third district is Westbourne, and numbers the
following settlements : Burnside, Westburne, Golden
Stream, Totogon, Woodside, and Palestine.
Whatever direction the settler may decide upon
taking, I am safe in the assertion that in no one of these
settlements will he be disappointed in the quality of the
lands in fact, he cannot in this respect go wrong any-
where in the Province.
. .

On application in Winnipeg at the office of the
Dominion Lands, the emigrant will be furnished with
a pamphlet, which is published monthly and contains
a register of the different sections as they are taken up
and from this, on arriving in the settlement, he may
decide upon his location, unless he prefers to strike
out a settlement for himself, which, if he is of the right
sort of material, he will most likely do. He can see
what is left open for his selection.

The emigration agent in Winnipeg will direct him
as to the best way of getting to the quarter he may
select, and he may rely upon meeting with all
hospitality and every assistance from the settlers, who
are only too glad to welcome the new-comer, though
he may not decide upon actually settling down among
them.

Arrived at the settlement or township, he can com-
mence his inspection, and, as the lines of division have
all been run by Government surveyors, he will have no
difficulty in keeping track of the different sections.
There are posts, distinctly marked, at the corner of
each full section, denoting the number of it and the
township and range in which it is situate. By these
means the settler will have no difficulty in describing
the quarter section he may select, merely noting care-
fully whether it be the north-east or south-east, or the
north-west or south-west quarter of the section.
I ought to mention that, besides the Land Office at
Winnipeg, the Government have established branch
offices at Dufferin and Westbourne for the benefit of
intending settlers. Thus in most cases where they
select these localities, they are saved the trouble and
expense of another trip to :Winnipeg.

Having selected his homestead, he win return to
the nearest of the above-named land offices, where he
will hand in the number and locals and have it regis-
tered. He will then be furnished with a form of
affidavit, which he will be required to fill in and sign
in the presence of a magistrate or the local agent ap-
pointed by Government for the purpose of attending
to the wants of the public.
The affidavit embodies the following facts :—That
the applicant is over 21 years of age; that he has not
previously obtained a homestead in Manitoba; that,
to the best of his belief and knowledge, there is no
person residing on the land he has selected or entitled
to enter the same as a homestead; and that he maces
the application for his exclusive use and benefit, and
for the purpose of actual settlement.
This affidavit completed and filed with the local
agent, the settler pays a fee of 10 dole, to him and gets
a receipt for it. This done, he is permitted to enter
the land specified in the application.
The settler will not get his patent until after the ex-
piration of three years from the time of his taking
possession of his homestead, though, should he desire
within that period to purchase it out and out, he may
do so on payment of the price fixed by Government at
the date of entry of the original application' which is
just now 1 dollar per acre; and he must, in addition,
give proof that he has settled upon it and cultivated a
part of it for not less than one year from that date.
These proofs have also to be made by affidavit, cor-
roborated on oath by two credible witnesses.

It may be well to mention here that the Govern-
ment, with the view of benefiting the greatest possible
number of settlers, have decided that in townships
consisting principally of prairie land, but where here
and there are islands or belts of timber, they shall be
subdivided into wood lots of not lesathan 10 nor more
than 20 acres each. One 1 these lots, so far as the
number of them will permit, would be apportioned to
each applicant for a quarter section prairie farm in that
township.
There are several provisions made with regard to the
disposal of land should the settler die before the ex-
piration of the three years ; but all information affecting
such a case will be found in the pamphlet to which I
have referred the settler in the selection of his land.
One more caution on this matter I have to make to
the intending settler, and my remarks on the matter
of the homestead are, I think, complete. Although
the land agents put the most liberal construction on
the meaning of the Act relating to Government lands,
still, should it be proved that he has voluntarily relin-
quished his claim or been absent from it for more than six
months in one year, his right to the land becomes for-
feited, and in either of these cases he will not be pennitted
to make more than a second entry. Should a settler
assign or transfer his homestead right before his patent
is issued to him, the act is considered null and void,
I and will be viewed as an abandonment of his claim.
I In this case no second entry would be allowed.

explosion of a charge in a pool adjoining, whereby
a vast volume of water was thrown up to a height of
nearly 200 feet in a.jet, which led to the remark on
the part of his Royal Highness the Duke, that this
would doubtless be an excellent explosive material for
torpedoes and other submarine uses; and he further
expressed himself as much gratified and surprised with
what he had Been of the power and value of dynamite
as an industrial agent. Lord Muncaster's agent, Mr.
Ross, made the arrangements for facilitating the
operations in quarrying the granite by blasting, which
is not the only the application of importance of
dynamite in that district, as it is calculated to be of
invaluable service in the mining orrations of winning
the hard luematite iron ores, which abound in West
Cumberland and Furness, from the watery strata and
workings of the mines.

have to kw carried all the way from England to these
places and yet further East for the use of ocean
steamers. Our coal measures may not be near ex-
haustion, though growing more difficult to work, but I
suppoeing they were inexhaustible it would still be true '
economy for us to draw upon the nearest source of
supply abroad wherever we happened to be, were it
eqsally good and primarily as cheap. Thus coal might
be stored along the overland route from Port Said
eastward from the Russian mines at a cost for freight •
of one half that of vessels going from our own ports. j
If our Black Sea ccrn fleet could coal at the ports where I
it takes in cargo as it now can coal at home, everybody I
would be a gainer.

There is, therefore, abundant room for the develop-
ment of the Russian mines. Independently of possible
manufacturing requirements, there is waiting for
them a sea coal traffic which ought to prove very
profitable. Unfortunately, there is not at present
much chance of that development going on very
rapidly. Russia is very thinly peopled everywhere,
and, considering the fertility of the soil, nowhere
more NO than in the region of those mines. Ffer people
are agricultural in habits and tastes, she possesses a vast
yearly growing trade in agricultural produce, on
which that population almost entirely depends,
which absorbs every available hand, the demand
for labour being so high sometimes in harvest that
men can earn 12e. 6d. and women Is. a day. The
out-of-door life suits the people, too, and they do
not take kindly to mining, nor show any aptitude
for it, so that altogether there is very great diffi-
culty in getting not merely good colliers, but colliers
of any kind. The people will not take to the work de-
finitely as a calling, and, as they work under ground
only with reluctance, if at all, whenthey can get nothing
else to do at a bad season of the year, their want of pro-
gress in the art of mining is not to be wondered at.
What coal is got out is obtained wastefully, and high
wages, coupled with a small out-put make what is got
dear. Anthracite coal costs 20s. to 245. per ton free on
board at the port of Roetoff, and soft coal at Taganrog is
10s. dearer. Prices are, in fact, so high still that should
English coal maintain its present price of about 18s. 6d.
a ton, or fall a little lower, it will be able to compete
in mere cost with Russia on the spot. With proper
miners and minim, machinery, where the coalisso easily
got at and presents apparently so few difficulties in
working, it would be easy to deliver it at the pit's mouth
for ss. a ton— it is estimated to cost just now from 6s.
to 7e.—and a line of railway, fed by branches, carry-
ing it on to the ports ought to reduce transport charges
so that the coal could be had there at a less price than
English coal now costs here at home. Until Russia
can get miners and so reduce the cost of the coabsupply
as to be aisle to undersell England very considerably in
the Black Sea and in the East, it is to be feared that
the possession of such rich mineral treasures will
neither help much to benefit herself nor to relieve the
strain to which the English supply is now put by the
requirements of our mercantile marine. The wants of
modern commerce are nowhere so marked as in a
lack of supplies of coal at calling places along the
great see. routes or at the termini, and if the treasures
of Russia and of China could once be opened to
grant that supply, an enormous load would be taken
off English shoulders. The export of coal from this
country seems insignificant when compared with
the total out-put, but the mere quantity represent but
in a email measure the actual cost to trade. It may
be hopeless yet to look for the opening of the mines of
China, although there is a dense population on the spot
capable of working them well, but if men be all that
Russia needs there ought to be no insuperabre diffi-
culty in the way of opening hers. We ourselves could
spare a few colliers, and something might be done
even yet to induce the remaining Mennonites of the
Crimea to forego their intentions of departing and
making a thinly-peopled country thinner still, and to
turn their thoughts towards the new industry.