No. 59

I have the honor to forward to Your Lordship a communication
from the Liquidators of the Queen Charlotte Island Coal Mining
Company with its enclosures, relating to a claim which they
prefer for a Premium, offered in what appears to me to have been
a somewhat irregular manner,

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by the Government of the former Colony of British Columbia, for the
first shipment of Two hundred Tons of Coal from the Colony.

2. I have not regarded myself as at liberty to recognize the
validity of this claim, nor felt that I ought to recommend it to
the recognition of the present Legislature of the now United Colony.

3. No provision of any fund for the payment of this Premium was
ever made by the Legislative Council. At the time when it was
offered the Mainland of British Columbia formed a government
separate from Vancouver Island, which already possessed Coal
mines in successful operation; and the object in view was to
establish a rivalry. The Premium was not claimed before the
Union of the two Colonies, nor until Six Years after the date of
the Notice in the Gazette.

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The present Legislature is
constituted differently from the Council by which it was authorized.

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And the Coal in respect of which the bonus is
claimed, shipped in 1870, does not now answer the description of
"the first Coal shipped from the Colony."

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No fund had been specially provided,

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and I regarded the offer of the Premium as having lapsed from
efflux of time

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or being revoked by
the subsequent change in the condition and circumstances of the
Colony, and no longer as binding upon the present government.

4. I do not view with favor the principle involved in the
payment of such Premiums.

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They do not induce or sustain
any enterprise which will not otherwise be found profitable.
The history of this Coal Company which is now in liquidation is
an example in illustration.

5. In any case the amount could not now be paid without a
reference to the local Legislature for authority at the next
Session after Union and this has been pointed out to the applicants.

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