The council, after due consideration of this
report and other data submitted to it, passed a series
of resolutions declaring that the seigneurial system was
retarding the agricultural progress of the province and
that, while its immediate abolition was not practicable,
steps should be taken to get rid of it gradually. But
nothing came of these resolutions. The Constitutional
Act of 1791 greatly complicated the situation by its
provisions relating to the so-termed 'clergy reserves,'
or reservations of lands for Church endowment, and it
was not until 1825 that the Canada Trade and Tenures Act
opened the way for a commutation of tenures whenever the
seigneur and his habitants could agree. This act was
permissive only. It did not apply any compulsion to the
seigneurs. Very few, accordingly, took advantage of its
provisions.
This was the situation when the uprising of 1837-38 took
place. The seigneurial system was not a leading cause of
the rebellion, but it was one of the grievances included
by the habitants in their general bill of complaint.
Hence, when Lord Durham came to Quebec to investigate
the causes of colonial discontent, the system came in
for its share of study. In his masterly Report on the
Affairs of British North America he recognized that the
old system had outlived its day of usefulness, and that
its continuance was unwise. But Durham outlined no plan
for its abolition. He believed that if the province were
given a government responsible to the masses of its own
people, the problem of abolition would soon be solved.
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