Murdoch and Wood to Merivale (Permanent Under-Secretary)

We have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 21st
ultimo, enclosing the copy of a letter from the Governor of the Hudsons
Bay Company relative to the Colonization of Vancouvers 
Island and
directing us to report on a suggestion made in that letter that the
obligation hitherto imposed on purchasers of land of bringing into the
Island a certain number of Settlers should not be insisted on in the
case of purchasers of small allotments not exceeding about 100 acres.

2. The grant of Vancouvers Island to the Hudson Bay Company in
1849 was made for the declared purpose of  
promoting the Colonization of
that Island and accordingly it is provided in the letters patent
conveying the grant, in conformity with terms previously agreed upon
between the Company and Earl Grey, that all monies realized by the
Company from the sale of Land or of Coal or other Minerals should, after
a deduction of one tenth by way of profit to the Company, be applied
towards the colonization and improvement of the  
Island. It is further
provided that if the Company should not within 5 years from the date of
the grant, i.e. 13th January 1849, have established on the Island a
Settlement of resident Colonists, emigrants from the United Kingdom or
other British Dominions, the Crown should be at liberty to revoke the
grant.

3. We do not find in the Parliamentary Papers the regulations
under which the Hudsons  
Bay Company have disposed of Lands in Vancouvers
Island, but we infer from the Governor's letter now before us that with
a view to carry out the Colonization of the Island it has been made a
condition of the sale of Land that the purchaser should introduce a
certain number of settlers. The proposal now is to remit this condition
in the case of purchasers of lots not exceeding 100 acres.

4. As far as we can judge from the papers 
before us, we apprehend
that the Hudson's Bay Company are competent to make this alteration of
their own authority, without the previous sanction of the Secretary of
State—but as the question has been referred to us we must add, that it
appears to us unobjectionable. Purchasers of so small a quantity as 100
acres would generally be persons in humble circumstances to whom the
obligation of introducing laborers might be 
inconvenient—and as they
would generally have but little capital out of which to employ hired
labor, they would have no more individual interest in the labor
introduced by means of their purchase money than any other settler in
the Island.

5. Whatever change may be made in the regulations in respect to
the disposal of lands the proportion of the proceeds assigned to the
Company and to Colonization  
purposes will of course remain the same.