Colonial Despatches

I have to acknowledge your letter of 22nd inst with a despatch from the Governor of B. Columbia enclosing an Ordinance passed by the Legislature during their last session entitled "An Ordinance respecting Preemption claims."

2. In the report from the Surveyor General of British Columbia enclosed in the Governor's despatch of 22nd August last it was stated that since 1865 numerous applications had been received for the survey of preempted lands in the old Colony of B. Columbia with a view to the completion of the purchase, but that after the survey had been performed only a small proportion of the applicants paid for the land and took out their grants. The present Ordinance is passed to meet this inconvenience. With this view it enacts that the purchase money on preemption claims, or the unpaid balance, shall be deemed to be due from the date of the service of an application, signed by the Commissioner of Works and Surveyor General, notifying the completion of the survey, and calling for payment. It does not however provide any summary mode for enforcing the debt, and leaves the Government therefore no other means of doing so than by the ordinary course of proceedings at Law. It would, I think, have been advisable to take the opportunity of this Ordinance to provide a less dilatory and expensive mode of enforcing payment. There may be reasons against doing so of which we are not aware, but Earl Granville may perhaps think it right to obtain an explanation on the subject from the Governor before pronouncing any decision on the Ordinance.