No. 13

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch of the
24th of November, No. 70 in which you report that your Predecessor
having appointed the Legislative Council of British Columbia to last for
one Year, which expired on the 31st of December, you had reconstituted
the Board and made several fresh appointments. I have no observations
to make upon the selections which have been made, but the course which
you have pursued in effecting this reconstruction will I fear
give rise to inconvenience if unless prompt steps are taken for
obviating it.

In the first place I do not see under what authority you are
empowered to "dissolve" the Legislative Council. That mode of
proceeding is appropriate to a legally constituted Representative
Assembly. But the British Columbia Council is not technically a
Representative Body, but a mere Crown Council to which the expedient of
dissolution is not naturally applicable, and is not made applicable by
the Order in Council which established the British Columbia Legislature.

The only modes by which a Councillor can be relieved of his Office
are 1st by the expression of Her Majesty's pleasure under Clause 5, of
the Order in Council. 2ndly by his seat being declared vacant by the
Governor upon his bankruptcy under Clause 13, and 3rd by his suspension
by the Governor on some definite charge, under Clause 14, of the Order in
Council, and 23rd of the Governor's instructions 2nd serious doubts may
(to say the least) may be entertained whether the new Councellors are
not unlawfully appointed as having been appointed before their
Predecessors term of Office had expired. With the view of extricating
you from this dillemna [dilemma], I am disposed to recommend you to
reappoint the gentlemen whom you have already appointed and as soon as
they are reappointed to pass a Law establishing retrospectively the
validity of all acts and proceedings taken before their reappointment.

In adopting the course which you have pursued I think you have not
been sufficiently alive to the necessity of studying the exact
provisions made by the instruments under which your powers as Governor
are conferred upon you before you proceed to exercise any of those
powers.

And I cannot too strongly urge upon you the necessity of acting
with great care and in any doubtful case with the advice of counsel in
matters where the legal validity of your proceedings is liable to be
impeached.