As we have, in the course of the narrative, given an incidental sketch of the history of the land question, we shall pass over that portion of the commissioners’ report which is occupied with facts that have already been partially submitted, and to which we must again refer at a more advanced stage of the narrative, and give the substance of the remedies which the commissioners proposed for existing evils. The commissioners expressed the hope that they might be regarded as having entered upon the discharge of their duties, not only with a high appreciation of the honor conferred by their appointment, but also with a due sense of the grave responsibilities which they assumed. When they commenced their labors there was a general impression that the act of the provincial legislature, which made their award binding on all parties concerned, would receive the royal assent; and, although the decision of the colonial secretary—not to submit that act for Her Majesty’s approval—somewhat relieved them from the weight of responsibility necessarily involved in the preparation and delivery of a judgment beyond appeal, they still felt that, as their award was to affect the titles of a million of acres, and the rights and interests of eighty thousand people, a hasty decision would not be a wise one, and that the materials for a judgment ought to be exhausted before the report was made. By traversing the island and mixing freely with its people, the commissioners had become familiar with its great interests and general aspects. By holding an open court in all the shire towns, they had given to every man on the island, however poor, an opportunity to explain his grievances, if he had any. By bringing the proprietors and tenants face to face before an independent tribunal, mutual misunderstandings and exaggerated statements had been tested and explained, and the real condition of society and the evils of the leasehold system had been carefully contemplated from points of view not often reached by those whose interests were involved in the controversy. The evidence collected, though not under oath,—the commissioners not being vested with power to administer oaths,—was most valuable in aiding them to form a correct estimate of the evils of which the people complained. The documentary history of the question extended over nearly a century of time, and was to be found in the journals of the Legislature, in the newspaper files of the colony, and in pamphlets more or less numerous. The amount of time and money wasted in public controversy no man could estimate; and the extent to which a vicious system of colonization had entered into the daily life of the people, and embittered their industrial and social relations, it was painful to record.