No. 26

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 24 of the
17th of February last on the subject of the grant of endowments in
Land to the clergy of the

principal Christian Communities established in
British Columbia.

I approve of the grants of about one acre each which you have
already made to the Clergy of the Church of England and the "Methodist
Episcopal Church" as sites for a Church, School and Dwelling House, and
you will also be at liberty to make similar grants in all Towns in the
Colony where ordained Ministers of the Gospel may take up their
residence, and where congregations may be established and require their
assistance; but care should be taken that the land shall be appropriated
to the purposes for which it was intended, and that it shall be so
conveyed as to be secure against the possibility of misapplication in
future years.

Your further proposal that free grants of 100 acres of
rural land should be made in aid of every cure established in British
Columbia and not otherwise supported at the Public expense, I consider
to be open to serious objections.

The experience afforded by other Colonies tends to shew that where
a clergyman in a new Colony has to depend on his land for his principle
means of subsistence, he must, to make it answer, devote to it so much
of his time as seriously to interfere with his usefulness. Unless he
does this the endowment becomes only an apparent, not a real, provision
for him. He cannot let it because land in a new settlement is never,
except under very peculiar circumstances,

taken on lease, and to employ
hired labour would generally be beyond the means of a clergyman so
situated.

For these reasons I am unable to sanction the measure which you
propose. The practice of making grants of Land as endowments to livings
in the Colonies has been generally discontinued for many years, and I
much doubt whether it is not better for a Clergyman to depend entirely
on the liberality of his congregation than to be provided with an
endowment which, though no substantial assistance to him, may be an
excuse to such of his Congregation as are disposed to withhold their
aid.