Colonial Despatches

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch No. 28 of the 31st of August last, enclosing a Bill submitted to you by the Legislative Council, and reserved by you for the signification of HerMajesty's Majesty's pleasure entitled "An Ordinance for the regulation of Banks."

I have referred this Bill for the consideration of the Lords Commissoners of the Treasury, and I now enclose a copy of the reply which I have received from the Board of Treasury.

You will submit to your Council the Amendments suggested in this letter, but as a matter of form it will be better not to submit them in the shape of an amending Ordinance, but to allow thepresent present Bill to drop and to pass a fresh Ordinance with the requisite alterations. This mode will be preferable both because it is convenient that the Law should be embraced in a single enactment, and because the course pursued in respect of the original Ordinance has not been quite correct.

The form of reserving Bills for the signification of Her Majesty's Pleasure is a form established by express Law, or by usage in certain Colonies possessing Representative Legislature, but it not provided forin in the Order in Council of 11th June 1863 to which all Legislative proceedings should be strictly conformable.

When it is necessary that the operation of any Ordinance should be delayed till it has been approved by Her Majesty, the proper course is to require that the Ordinance should contain a Clause suspending its operation till The Queen's Pleasure thereon should have been signified in the Colony by Proclamation. With this Clause the Governor should assent to it and sendit it home for confirmation or disallowance.