No. 15

I have received your despatch No 189 of the 6th of July
transmitting for my approval and confirmation, a return of the
provisional appointments which you have made to offices in British
Columbia between 1st January and 30th June 1859.

I am unable in the absence of more full information than is
supplied by your despatch, to confirm these appointments. I cannot
impress upon you too strongly the necessity of confining the
expenditure of British Columbia within the limits of the revenue, and,
in the present state of the finances of the Colony, of maintaining its
establishments on the most economical scale consistent with a due regard
to the proper administration of the government and the preservation of
order in the Country. At the present moment when the efflux of
population from the Colony is great and constant, I cannot feel
satisfied of the necessity for the creation of so large a number of new
appointments, involving an additional annual charge of nearly Three
thousand pounds (£3,000) on it's resources.

I have therefore to instruct you to furnish me with a return of the
whole Civil Establishment of British Columbia distinguishing the
appointments that have been sanctioned by the Secretary of State and
affording me a full explanation of the grounds for the creation of
those which you have provisionally established and of the nature and
extent of the duties attached to them. Pending the receipt of this
report, I am compelled to withhold my confirmation of the appointments
in the list that accompanies your despatch for the creation of which the
sanction of the Secretary of State has not been previously given.

I have also to instruct you to transmit to the Secretary of State
in future quarterly returns in the Form of which I annex a copy of all
changes in offices or new appointments in the Colony.