No. 56

I am directed by the Secretary of State to acknowledge your
despatch No. 72 of the 4th of August last respecting certain grants
of land which you were desirous of making to the Clergy of the four
principal denominations of Christians in British Columbia, i.e. of the
English, Roman, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches.

For the reasons already communicated to you the Secretary of State
cannot sanction the grants of rural Land which

you still apparently
advocate, but he sees no objection to your affording a temporary
pecuniary assistance to Ministers of Religion in British Columbia from
Colonial Funds, if those funds are adequate for the purpose, and if you
have sufficient reason for believing that such an appropriation of
public money will not be unacceptable to the Colonists.

Charged as you are with the task of expending on your own
responsibility the produce of the taxes, it is peculiarly necessary for
you to avoid the appearance of individual preference, or partiality. I
think therefore that the Public aid given to Ministers of religion
should not be confined to any specified denominations but should if
possible be determined by a generally intelligible rule which while
furnishing some

security against useless or improper appropriations will
not suggest any distinction between Ministers of different persuasions
who may be exerting themselves with equal earnestness for the good of
the Community. It might be required for example as a condition to any
grant of money that a Memorial should be presented to the Governor
signed by a certain number or proportion of persons resident within a
certain district and either offering to meet the Government grant by
certain immediate or annual contributions of their own or stating that
from some source or other such contributions had been made. This
however is merely suggested by the Secretary of State, as an
illustration. He is fully aware that your own knowledge of the
exigencies

of the Colony, of the temper and wishes of the population
and of the assistance to be derived there from Religious persons or
societies, will enable you to choose your own course in a matter of
detail more appropriately than he can do.

But in any case you will take care to make it clearly understood
that any assistance of this kind is temporary, and that if given in the
form of an annual payment all those who receive it must not calculate on
retaining it after it has ceased to be sanctioned by the Public opinion
of the Colony, and consistent with other demands on the Revenue.