34. 'CLERGY RESERVES, The. The clergy reserves were lands set apart, by virtue of the Constitutional Act of 1791, for the maintenance of the Protestant clergy in Upper and Lower Canada. The intention of the act was to reproduce in the colony an episcopal establishment similar to that of Great Britain, to whose primate it was to be subordinate. The provincial governors were directed under the act to reserve one-seventh of the land for the support of the Protestant clergy. The re served blocks of land were to be distributed among those granted to settlers. In Upper Canada a full seventh of all the land was to be granted. In Lower Canada reserves were to be made only in proportion to new settlement and not in respect of lands already occupied. No reservations were made in the latter prov ince until 1796. Reservations were made each year until 1838 (except in 1813). The total reservations made in Lower Canada amounted to over 930,000 acres: in the upper province to about 2,400,000 acres. The Crown was also em powered to authorize the lieutenant-governor of each province from time to time to erect parsonages, to endow them with a portion of the reserve lands and to present incumbents to them (Constitutional Act, Secs. 38, 39, 40). The operation of the system thus established was not at first felt as a serious grievance. Land being still plentiful, the reservations remained unsold and were leased at extremely low rentals (10 shillings for 200 acres during first seven years). With the progress of settlement how ever the rentals constantly rose. The question of the clergy reserves became a subject of in creasing complaint. The members of • the Church of England were in a decided minority, not only in the lower province, but in Upper Canada itself. The question early arose whether the wording of the act— eallotment and appropriation of lands for the support of a Protestant clergy"— could not be construed in favor of the Presbyterian and Dissenting denominations. The matter being referred to the home government, the law officers of the Crown decided (November 1819) that ithe 'Scotch Church had a claim for a share of the rentals, but that no other denominations had a claim at all. The irritation thus caused ren dered the question one of acute difficulty during the succeeding 30 years, and has been desig nated by Dr. Bryce, the Canadian historian, the "Thirty Years' Religious War in Upper Canada." The distribution of the population of Upper Canada among the different denom inations in 1839 was as follows: Church of England, 79,754; Methodists, 61,088; Presby terians, 78,383; Roman Catholics, 43,029; Bap tists, 12,968; others, 57,572. The claims of the Church of England were stoutly upheld by the Rev. John Strachan, subsequently bishop of Toronto (1839). Egerton Ryerson (see RYER SON, A. E.), a young Methodist minister, strove with equal zeal on behalf of the Methodist Church.
In 1827 the assembly of Upper Canada asked the Crown to devote the reserves to the creation of schools and of churches of all de nominations. The same request was repeated
in each of the three following years with con siderable popular agitation. Meantime the en dowment of rectories as provided by the act of 1791 was authorized by instructions from the Crown in 1825. The excited state of public feeling delayed for some years the execution of this project, but in 1836 54 rectories were endowed with 400 acres each. The discontent thus caused helped to precipitate the rebellion of 1837. With the suppression of that move ment the question of the clergy reserves still earnestly demanded solution. An act of the legislature of Upper Canada in 1839, pro posing to reinvest the reserves in the Crown, was disallowed by the home government. In the following year the legislature passed an act for the sale of the reserves, one-half of the proceeds to go to the churches of England and Scotland, and the other to be divided among the other religious denominations. This again was abortive, the British judges, on question by the House of Lords, deciding that the provincial legislature had exceeded its authority. The Imperial Parliament now in tervened and passed an act (7 Aug. 1840) for the settlement of the question. Part of the reserves had already been sold by authority of a statute of 1827. The proceeds of these sales were to be divided between the churches of England and Scotland, the former receiving two-thirds; the unappropriated lands (1,800,000 acres) were to be sold, and the amount realized to be invested, one-half of the interest being given to the two above churches, in the pro portion already mentioned, the other half to be applied by the governor and executive council for public worship and religious instruction. The income thus accruing was divided in the ensuing years among the churches of England and Scotland, the Wesleyan Methodist, Roman Catholic and Synod Presbyterian churches and the United Synod Presbytery. The question was still far from settled. It was claimed that the lands were sold by the Crown at insufficient prices, and Bishop Strachan led an agitation for the sharing up of the lands themselves. The assembly refused to petition the Crown to this effect, but demanded the repeal of the act of 1840. The Imperial Parliament complied by a statute of 1853, which placed the reserves in the control of the provincial Parliament (the two Canadas being now united). The Canadian Parliament elected in 1854 strongly reflected the general public feeling in favor of secularization. A statute to that effect was passed. A lump sum of £188,342 was paid to the Church of England, representing the guarantee of stipends then charged on the re serve fund, called for by the Imperial act. The reserved lands were sold and the proceeds given to the municipal authorities for educa tion and local improvement. Consult Lindsay, 'The Clergy Reserves' (1851) ; 'Memoir of Bishop Strachan) (1870); Ryerson, 'Story of My Life' (1883).