Walcott to Rogers (Permanent Under-Secretary)

I have to acknowledge your Letter of the 27th ultimo enclosing an
application from Mr John Irving to be allowed to give up certain
lands which he had purchased in Van Couvers Island and to receive
back the deposit he had paid for them.

2. It appears that in December 1859 Mr Irving applied to purchase
200 acres in the North Saanich district at the then upset price of £1
an acre and obtained an allotment of 159 acres, on account of which
he paid down £50. Subsequently, at the instance of the House of
Assembly and Legislative Council, the price of Government Country
lands was (in February 1861) reduced to 4s/2d an acre.

3. Mr Irving pleads that this measure operates to the detriment of
purchasers at £1 an acre, and claims that the Government should
restore the £50 he has paid, and resume the land.

4. It is plain that the reduction in the price of land must
injuriously affect the previous purchasers—nevertheless I do not see
how this claim can be admitted without establishing a principle and a
precedent of a wide application and pregnant with consequences
injurious to the public interests. If the application be granted
others could not be refused. The whole land transactions of the
Colony would thus become unsettled and the Colonial Government might
be involved in liabilities beyond its ability to meet.

5. In all dealings of this kind the purchaser, as it appears to me,
must be held to take the land under the circumstances of the moment,
and subject to the contingencies and implied conditions legitimately
attaching to it. One of these contingencies obviously is (especially
in a new Country) the liability to such changes in the land granting
system as the general welfare of the Colony may demand.

6. Had the change in question taken an opposite direction Mr Irving
would not have felt called on to tender and would doubtless have
resisted any claim for payment of the increased price.

7. All, I think, that could properly be conceded to Mr Irving is to
allow him to select 50 acres of his allotment for the £50 he has
actually paid, and to relieve him from his liability to complete the
rest of his contract.