No. 18

I have the honor to acknowledge your Despatch No. 86 of the 11 July
transmitting copies of three ordinances entitled respectively:

An Ordinance to facilitate the issues of the Crown grants.

An Ordinance to amend and consolidate the Laws affecting Crown Lands
in B.C. and

An Ordinance to assimilate the Law relating to the transfer of Real
Estate, and to provide for the registration of titles to lands
throughout the Colony of British Columbia

Together with the reports of the Attorney General upon these Laws;
and a letter addressed to you on the subject of the third of these
Ordinances by the managers of certain Banks; and I have now to convey to
you Her Majesty's gracious confirmation and allowance of those
Ordinances.

With reference to the third of these Laws I observe that no
provision has been made for compensation to parties wrongfully deprived
of land from erroneous registration, fraud or otherwise. It is however
very desirable that such provisions should be made in measures of this
nature, and they have been accordingly introduced into the South
Australian Act 1858, into the New South Wales Act of 1862, and into a
recent Ordinance passed in Trinidad.

Unless therefore there are objections to this course peculiar to
British Columbia of which I am not aware, I am of opinion that the ordinance should
be amended by the introduction of the same, or similar, provisions for
compensation as are to be found in the Acts referred to above.

I enclose for your information a copy of the New South Wales Act
(No. 9 of 1862) which has since been adopted almost verbatim in the
Crown Colony of Trinidad.