No. 56

I have received and laid before the Queen the three Ordinances
noted in the margin, passed by the Legislature of British Columbia the
month of March 1865; and I am commanded to inform you that Her Majesty
has been graciously pleased to sanction and confirm the same.

It appears to me that a great portion of the Ordinance No. 14 of
1865 would have been more conveniently promulgated, not as a Law but in
the shape of regulations made by the governor in pursuance of powers
which might have been conferred on him by the Legislature. This method
wants have facilitated that occasional revision and alteration which a
novel state of things usually renders necessary. At the same time I
readily admit that the local Authorities ought to be the best judges of
the form in which a Law of this kind should be framed, and as the
convenience of regulations is self evident, there were I presume
objection to that course of proceeding which do not occur to me.