No. 5

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch No. 28
of the 31st of August last, enclosing a Bill submitted to you by the
Legislative Council, and reserved by you for the signification of Her
Majesty's pleasure entitled "An Ordinance for the regulation of Banks."

I have referred this Bill for the consideration of the Lords
Commissoners of the Treasury, and I now enclose a copy of the reply
which I have received from the Board of Treasury.

You will submit to your Council the Amendments suggested in this
letter, but as a matter of form it will be better not to submit them in
the shape of an amending Ordinance, but to allow the present Bill to
drop and to pass a fresh Ordinance with the requisite alterations. This
mode will be preferable both because it is convenient that the Law
should be embraced in a single enactment, and because the course pursued
in respect of the original Ordinance has not been quite correct.

The form of reserving Bills for the signification of Her Majesty's
Pleasure is a form established by express Law, or by usage in certain
Colonies possessing Representative Legislature, but it not provided for
in the Order in Council of 11th June 1863 to which all Legislative
proceedings should be strictly conformable.

When it is necessary that the operation of any Ordinance should be
delayed till it has been approved by Her Majesty, the proper course is
to require that the Ordinance should contain a Clause suspending its
operation till The Queen's Pleasure thereon should have been signified
in the Colony by Proclamation. With this Clause the Governor should
assent to it and send it home for confirmation or disallowance.