Murdoch and Rogers to Merivale (Permanent Under-Secretary)

We have to acknowledge your letter of 24th instant
transmitting for our information extracts of letters received
from Capt Clarke R.E. formerly Surveyor General of Victoria,
pointing out the course to be adopted for allowing Settlers
in British Columbia to occupy and cultivate Crown Land before
it has been surveyed.

2. In obedience to the directions

in the last paragraph of
your letter we return the sketch of an Order in Council which
accompanied Capt. Clarke's second letter. As this sketch had
been referred for Governor Douglas' report we abstain from
offering any observations on it. But we may be allowed to
point out that an arrangement which might be inevitable in
Victoria, where the population rose in less than two years from
77,000 to 157,000, would not have the same justification in B.
Columbia, where at the latest date the

population did not exceed 5,000.