Murdoch to Rogers (Permanent Under-Secretary)

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.