due to a very important treaty made in 1854, through the tact and wisdom of Lord Elein. In that year Canada and the United States agreed upon a Reciprocity Treaty, by which the products of the sea, the farm, the mine, and the forest could be freely exchanged. The United States obtained the right to fish in many of Canada’s waters, and the use of the St. Lawrence and Canadian canals; while Canada, in return, was given the right to navigate Lake Michigan. The treaty was to continue ten years from March, 1855, and after that could’ be ended by twelve months’ notice from either party.
8. The Clergy Reserves and Seignorial Tenure.—Meanwhile, political agitation was going on over two burning questions. One was the old grievance of the Clergy Reserves, which the Baldwin-Lafontaine Administration hoped had been settled in 1840. But a strong and growing body of the more radical Reformers, led by George Brown, the editor and manager of the Globe, a powerful political newspaper, wished to take the reserves away from the denominations and use them for the general good of the Province. The other question, that of Seignorial Tenure, was one of great interest to the people of Lower Canada. It was seen that holding land under the old French system of feudal tenure was a great hindrance to the prosperity of the farmers of that Province; the services and payments by the peasants to the ‘‘seigneurs” having become a grievous burden as the Province became better settled and the land more valuable. It was found impossible to dispose of one question without dealing with the other; so in 1854, the Reform Government of Mr. Hincks having been defeated by the temporary union of the extreme wing of the Reformers with the Conservatives, the new Conservative Ministry of Sir Allan McNab, brought in two bills; the one to divide the Clergy Reserves among the different municipalities of Upper Canada according to population, the proceeds to be used by them for local improvements or for educational purposes; the other, to abolish Seignorial Tenure, and to. allow the land in Lower Canada to be held by the people as frecholds. In both cases compensation was made by Parliament for the losses the clergy and the seigneurs suffered by the change. In this way two grievances of long standing were happily removed, and the last link uniting Church and State in Upper Canada was broken. Two other political changes must be noted. In 1853, the population having increased greatly since the Union, the number of
