Colonial Despatches

Probably the most satisfactory reply I can give your communication of the 30th, with reference to the Assay & Melting branch of the British Columbia Mint, is, by soliciting from His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, that attention to my report of July 15/62, which, in it, I ventured to ask.

The report embraced the very points now under consideration—the Departments pastcondition condition, and prospects.

It was penned specially for the information of His Grace, in anticipation of my views as Head of the Department being desired. It was forwarded to Governor Douglas for transmission as part of a correspondence relating to certain claims advanced by the Assay Officers, and should therefore be found in your office. I however enclose a copy.

To that report I should have nothing to add, were it not, that in your letter under acknowledgement, the sum of £9000 is in error quoted to me, as outlay in connection with the Meltingand and Assay Department; whereas, that sum, as the report clearly states, includes the cost (about £2000) of the Mint, or coining, machinery, procured by Mr Douglas in 1861, prematurely as I thought at the time, and erected by me at New Westminister prior to my departure.

As my report further implies, other reductions should be made, in studying the legitimate cost of the Assay Establishment.

Although such corrections in the total expenditure, are necessary towardsan an impartial scrutiny of the Department's career, it is not to be inferred, that I ever calculated upon first costs, plant, freight, passages, buildings &c &c, being directly repaid by current receipts.

When I wrote on the 25th April 1859, advocating the Melting and Assay parts of a Mint, I only anticipated the direct repayment of Current expenses by current receipts, and that, not until after the first year of the Department's establishment.

That my original expectations have not been fully realized, and may notbe be, even during another year, does not shake my conviction of their rectitude. At the time I formed my opinions, I never imagined, that British Columbia's Capital would long be without a resident Governor, or the Colony without a Council and Assembly or that therefore, many measures contemplated at the time, deemed by the Colonists essential to British Columbia's progress, and which such institutions would have ensured at an early date, could have remained wanting to this day!

The Assay office has shared in the general effects resulting from a lack of apopular popular policy. It suffered also a direct blow at the outset from delay in its establishment, for, doubts as to its future promptness were at once engendered, and to my discomfiture, private assayers were forming their connections the while. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the Department is steadily gaining public confidence. A comparison of corresponding quarters, exhibits a regular and promising increase of business; and, the receipts by fees, although, as you remind me, if only £900 in two years, were £600 in the second year, orone third one third of the annual current expenses.

In Augst, my last month in the Colony, about 5,500 ounces of gold were received for assay, against 1,700 ounces in the corresponding month of last year—a triple quantity. Should this rate of average continue, the Department would be directly self-supporting.

But, whether the current fees do or do not suffice to defray expenses, is regarded by the Colonists as a matter of very little moment. The effect of the Government office in checkingmalpractices malpractices amongst private assayers, is understood and loudly acknowledged. The saving to the Colony by this alone, at the lowest computation, 2 exceeds the total cost of the assay department, first cost current expenses, and every other item included!.

To confine any examination of the department's worth, to the mere consideration of its apparent cost, to the exclusion of the well known fact that any disturbance of its operations would be the tocsin for an enormous loss to the general community, would but ill accord with the views of theremarkably remarkably intelligent and practical people of British Columbia, who, sensible of the department's great value, desire its fullest development, and, of all expenditure out of taxation, have approved none more than that for the erection of the Melting, Assay, (and now Mint) buildings in New Westminister, and for preserving efficiency therein.