No. 33

I have the honour to forward herewith, the Copy of a communication from Mr John Ramage, President of the Municipal Council of New Westminster, transmitting the enclosed Memorial for presentation to Her Majesty the Queen.

2. The professed object of the Memorialists is to represent
grievances; and more especially to draw the attention of Her
Majesty's Ministers to the fact that the Imperial Act of the
2nd day of August 1858, providing for the Government of British Columbia, will expire with the present year.

3. The prayer of the Memorialists is summed up under the
following heads:

1st That the Governor should reside permanently in the
Colony.

2nd That "a system of responsible Government similar to
that possessed by the Eastern British North
American and Australian Colonies" should be
granted to British Columbia.

4. My views on the subject of establishing Representative
Government in British Columbia having been laid in much detail
before Your Grace in my Despatches "Separate" of the 22nd
April 1861, and the 8th October 1861, it is unnecessary to
occupy your time by a repetition of them on this occasion.

5. It was stated in those Despatches that I saw in the almost
total absence of agricultural Settlers, and of a landed proprietory,
in the paucity of the British element, and in the migratory and unsettled habits of the population who had resorted to British Columbia, substantial reasons for maintaining unaltered, within the Colony, the Government of the Queen in Council, as by Parliament established.

6. The circumstances then contemplated have since somewhat
changed. British Colonists are increasing in number, and it is
expected that the Roads now being constructed towards the Mines
will have the effect of producing permanent settlements; yet this
progress, however satisfactory, is not sufficient to establish the
expediency of maintaining a Constitution on the model of the
populous and wealthy Colonies, with a House of Representatives and
a Council, alluded to in the Memorial.

7. The Memorial is, I am persuaded, merely the work of a
party, yet so fondly are we attached to the name of liberty, that
I feel assured were it a matter of choice, every Englishman in the
Colony, without stopping to enquire about its effects on the Country,
or supposing that the administration would improve by the change,
would at once give his suffrage on behalf of Representative
Government: the concession of some form of popular government
will therefore, I believe, give general satisfaction to the people
of the Colony, and may probably be considered a political necessity.
On that subject I submit, with diffidence, the following remarks.

8. In a community containing a small number of inhabitants,
widely dispersed over a vast extent of country, I would advocate
a simpler form of government, and one capable of acting in
emergencies with greater promptitude and economy than would be
attainable under the forms recommended in the Memorial. A small
and more select body, forming a single Chamber of perhaps 15
Members, one third nominated by the Crown, and the remaining two
thirds elected by the people, would, I conceive, for the present,
and probably for some years to come; perform all the functions
really required in the existing condition of the Colony.

9. The power of assenting to, or negativing, or suspending
for the assent of the Crown, the measures passed by Council, to
be reserved for the Governor, and the initiation of all money
votes in the local Government.

10. I would also recommend the adoption of thoroughly
conservative principles in the construction of the Council.
Members should, I think, be possessed in their own right of at
least £500 of freehold estate; and with respect to electors, I
would on the same principle provide, that no person should be
qualified to vote for Members of Council, unless possessed of
land, or other fixed or immoveable property of the marketable
value of £100 sterling within the Colony.

11. I offer these remarks merely from a sense of duty,
begging at the same time to assure Her Majesty's Government that
whatever may be the conclusion arrived at with respect to the
future government of the Colony, I shall be fully prepared to
carry out their instructions to the best of my ability.