No. 34

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch, No. 48 of the
18th March enclosing a letter from the Chief Justice of Vancouver Island
in which he puts forward a claim for compensation for conducting a
Commission issued by Captain Kennedy to enquire into the loss of the
Mail Steamer "Labouchere."

You will have the goodness to inform Mr. Needham that the
Government feels indebted to him for his assistance on that occasion,
but that it is one of a kind in which eminent Public Officers are
accustomed to give the benefit of their services to the Public without
additional pay, and that I do not think that it would be proper subject
for special remuneration.