No. 26

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch
No. 149 of the 22nd November enclosing a Copy of an Ordinance "for
regulating the Acquisition of Crown Lands in British Columbia."

I should be glad to receive Returns from the proper Officer, and
a Report from you shewing clearly the working of the present system
of land sale, and I also desire to know to what extent settlers have
taken advantage of the preemption system, to what extent their lands
have been surveyed and granted, to what extent the conditions of
settlement, by way of personal residence and improvement have been
actually enforced, and whether any difficulty has been found in
obtaining payment for the land occupied and in defining its
boundaries.

Although the practice of allowing every Immigrant to take what
land he likes and where he likes is doubtless that which will impose
least trouble on the Government Officers for the time being and will
have an appearance of satisfying Immigrants, such a system is
obviously calculated to furnish occasion for future disputes as
settlement advances, and has been in fact found to do so in other
Colonies. There are therefore strong reasons, if it is possible, for
providing that surveys should precede instead of following
settlement.