No. 89

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Grace's
Despatch No 33 of the 15th June forwarding a letter from the
Deputy Governor of the Hudson Bay Co

complaining of the operation
of the Customs Laws of British Columbia upon the interests of
that Company.

2. Your Grace has taken so clear and just a view of the case
that it is scarcely necessary for me to enter into the merits of
the general question, but to prove to your Grace the futility of
the complaint, and to exhibit the general

working of the Customs
Laws in British Columbia with regard to the business of the
Hudson Bay Co, I forward herewith a very clear and able Report
from Mr Hamley the Collector of Customs, accompanied by
correspondence from the Officers of the Company at Victoria,
by which it will be seen, that not only has it been the practice
to allow a drawback on the goods sent into the Russian Territory,
but that in a recent

case where goods were forwarded by the
Company in transit through British Columbia to Colville in the
American Territory, no duty whatever was either levied or paid.
Although the Directors of the Company in England could not at
the date of their letter be aware of the latter transaction,
yet it appears somewhat

remarkable, that the data before them
from which they reviewed the case, should not have supplied so
important an item of information as the former.

3. With regard to the alleged "exaction" of Customs duties
at Victoria, your Grace has already pointed out to the Company
that the law is optional on vessels going North of Frasers
River

to pay duty at Fort Victoria or New Westminster, and that this
provision must be intended as a convenience rather than a
restriction. As Mr Hamley remarks

It was expressly to save the Company's servants the trouble and delay of
coming to New Westminster that permission was given to 

them to pay
their duties at Fort Victoria from which Port the Vessel sails.
An objection on their part to this arrangement is simply
absurd, but if from any unaccountable reason they prefer it,
they are at all times at liberty to bring their vessels to
New Westminster for clearance and the payment of duties.

No overt complaints have ever been made by the Company's

Officers on the spot regarding this convenience, and I need
scarcely say they do not avail themselves of the option of
clearing at New Westminster, although since the removal of
the Treasury to that place, the duties in such cases have
been paid to the Collector of Customs at New Westminster—the

Vessel meanwhile clearing from Fort Victoria as heretofore.