Separate

Continuing our progress from Hope, from whence I last
addressed your Grace, on the morning of the

6th June, we
arrived at Yale in the afternoon of the same day.

2. A deputation of the inhabitants bearing a congratulatory
address, waited upon me almost immediately after my arrival,
and I took that opportunity of stating that I had been induced
to visit Yale on that occasion chiefly by the desire

of
conferring with them on the highly important subject of
improving and wherever necessary altering the line of the
present trail leading from Yale to Lytton, with the view of
reducing the expense of transport and rendering the country
beyond the mountains accessible to intending settlers.

3. I drew their attention to the fact that the cost of
transport

by the existing mountain trail, between Yale and
Lytton, a distance of 80 miles, exceeded Seventy six pounds (£76)
a ton, a charge which the gold miner, by reason of his large
earnings, and limited wants, might possibly contrive to meet,
but it was evident that until the cost of transport be greatly
reduced, settlers, with their multiform wants

would be
involved in ruinous expenses, and in fact, virtually excluded
from the interior of the Country, which might for want of
such facilities of communication as I proposed to form,
remain a desert for years to come.

I also remarked how nearly impossible it was, by any conveyance
practicable on those

trails, to transport the implements
indispensable to the farmer for bringing the land into cultivation.

4. I therefore recommended that the inhabitants of the
Town should forthwith hold a meeting for the purpose of
choosing a temporary Council of five members, to concert
measures with me, for raising the

funds requisite for
carrying on that important enterprise, which must necessarily
confer the most signal benefits on the country at large, and
so greatly promote the individual interests of the people of Yale.

5. I then suggested that the money required for that service,
should be raised by means

of an inland duty of one farthing a pound, to
be charged after the completion of the road on the weight of all goods
leaving Yale for any inland part, above and beyond that place, and that
in the meantime the outlay should be met by an issue of Colonial Bonds,
bearing interest at 6 per cent per annum, to be repaid at fixed

periods from the revenues so created.

6. In continuation of that subject I may remark, for
your Grace's information, that a town Council of five members
was subsequently chosen by the inhabitants of Yale, who, on
behalf of their fellow citizens, presented a Petition,
recommending that

the proposed duty of one farthing a pound,
should be charged on all goods carried inland from Yale, and
that the revenues derived from that source should be applied
to the redemption of the Bonds, issued in payment of the
work done on the roads, and also praying that a uniform rate
of duty should be levied on

all goods carried inland from
Hope and Douglas, in order that no one route should have any
preference, or decided advantage over the others.

7. The inland exports from Yale are estimated at Fifty
tons a week, or Two thousand six hundred tons per annum;
the proposed duty, equivalent to two pounds, four

shillings
and nine pence (£2.4.9) a ton, should therefore yield an annual
revenue of Six thousand, five hundred pounds (£6,500), without taking
into account the progressive increase of trade and population,
that sum will thus, at the most moderate computation, form
an ample fund for the redemption of the

Bonds, and payment
of the interest, accruing thereon, and the Country will be
largely repaid for the immediate outlay by a direct saving
of five pence (5d) a pound weight or Forty six pounds, thirteen
shillings, and four pence (£46.13.4), a ton, which it is estimated
will be effected in
the cost of transport from Yale to Lytton by

opening the new
line of road, as well as from many other sources of prosperity
and wealth, that the improvement of the roads will bring into play.

8. Having thus provided the means of executing our plans,
the commissioner of Lands and Works was authorized to proceed
immediately in carrying them into

effect. Two portions of
the new line of road, from Yale to Spuzzum, are now in progress,
and a third portion, between Chapman's and Boston Bar, is
about being surveyed, in hopes of discovering some line which
may avoid the circuitous direction, and the mountainous district
through which the mule trail now

passes, whereby the actual
distance is greatly increased, while the route is in winter
rendered altogether impassable by the great depth of snow.

9. I beg herewith to forward, for your Grace's information
the substance of a short address which, previous to my departure,
I delivered to the people of Yale.

See enclosure No 1

complimenting them for their public spirit,
and thanking them for the cordial manner in which they had responded to
my proposals for promoting the improvement of the country.

10. The inhabitants of Hope, to which place I returned
on the 15th June, were equally liberal in their views, and
also drew up a

Petition in favour of an inland duty, equivalent
to that levied at Yale, on all goods carried overland from
Hope, which will provide funds for improving the road to
Quayome, or Boston Bar, and opening a new route by the
Ballomme River into the Shimilkomeen valley, a distance of 60 miles, the expense

of which on the scale proposed will
not exceed Four thousand pounds (£4,000).

11. I herewith transmit for your Grace's information a
sketch map of part of British Columbia, shewing the proposed
lines of road mentioned in this report, together with the
roads before completed, and others strongly recommended by
the Commissioner

of Lands and Works, and which will no doubt
greatly facilitate and promote the settlement of the Country.

12. I am happy to inform your Grace that the reports from all the
mining districts continue to be of the most favourable character.

Mining is no longer a speculation, it is becoming a
business, yielding an appreciable

and certain return, and
every day is extending our knowledge of the gold deposits.

13. Our latest accounts represent that 600 miners were
successfully employed on Quesnelle river, earning from Ten
to Twenty-five dollars ($10, to $25) a day.

The spring freshets have driven them away from their claims
in the beds of

the rivers, and they had commenced operations on
the hills and ravines, which have turned out to be highly
auriferous.

Several pieces of gold varying from Six to eight ounces
have been found in those new diggings, and the gold produced
has a rougher surface, and is in larger pieces than that found
in

the country west of Lytton.

14. About one thousand white miners are working on Fraser's
River between Alexandria and Lytton, and about Four thousand
Chinese miners are employed in the various districts of the Colony.

15. In my next excursion to British Columbia, I propose

to devote my attention to the Harrison river district, where
the land communications are being rapidly improved, and two
small Steamers, soon to be increased by a third, are in full
operation on the Lakes.

16. I trust Her Majesty's Government will approve of the
measures herein

detailed for removing the impediments of access
to the Country, and the issue of Bonds as a means of raising
money for carrying on the work; the whole expense of those
works will be defrayed out of the revenues of the Country,
derived as I have before stated from the duty on inland transport.

I feel assured that I have not over-rated the resources of
the Country, and that they are equal to the emergency, and I
believe that those resources will be, more or less, largely
developed, just in proportion to the degree in which the
difficulties of access are removed.