Confidential

In reply to your Confidential Despatch of the 19th April I may
refer you to my public Despatch of this day's date as containing my
views upon the subject of the Supreme Courts of British Columbia and
Vancouver Island.

The difficulty in dealing with this case has been considerably
increased from the fact than an erroneous view of the effect of the
British Columbia Act 1866 was so strongly entertained at first in the
Colony; and it is to this fact that I am inclined to attribute, in
part, the continued opposition of the Judges and Attorney General to
the proposed measure.

I am fully aware of the objections which have been and may be
urged against that measure, but I do not doubt that the attorney
general will have exerted himself to insert in the Bill during its
passage through the Legislature Clauses calculated either to remove
the inconveniences which he anticipates or to mitigate them as far as
the circumstances of British Columbia render such mitigation
practicable.