Walcott to Elliot (Assistant Under-Secretary)

I have the honor to acknowledge your Letter of the 20th
instant enclosing an Ordinance No 12 of 1864 passed by the
Legislature of British Columbia entitled "An Ordinance to
increase the facilities for registering documents relating to real
property."

2. The Colonial Attorney General in his report on the
Ordinance explains that many English Deeds cannot under the existing
Law be registered merely from the want of a few additional
unimportant words. The first object therefore of the Ordinances
is to give to Notarial Certificates of the execution of Deeds
made without the Colony relating to real property within it, the
force of acknowledgements under the British Columbia Land Registry
Act 1861, provided the Registrar chooses to accept such proof of
the execution of the Documents. This proviso is to guard against
the abuse of the facility thus accorded.

3. The second object of the Ordinance is to render compulsory
the registration of all future Crown grants before they are issued.
For want of such a provision, and an early Registry of grants,
litigation has already been occasioned, and the evil if not
remedied would increase by lapse of time. The fee for registration
is a uniform one of 5s/ which the Attorney General states is
less than one half of the amount payable under the previous Ordinance
of 1861.

4. I have the honor to report that no objection occurs to me on
this Ordinance, and I would submit that it may be left to its operation.