Colonial Despatches

I have the honor to acknowledge your Despatch No. 86 of the 11 July transmitting copies of three ordinances entitled respectively: An Ordinance to facilitate the issues of the Crown grants.
An Ordinance toamend amend and consolidate the Laws affecting Crown Lands in B.C. and
An Ordinance to assimilate the Law relating to the transfer of Real Estate, and to provide for the registration of titles to lands throughout the Colony of British Columbia

Together with the reports of the Attorney General upon these Laws; and a letter addressed to you on the subject of the third of these Ordinances by the managers of certain Banks; and I have now to convey to you Her Majesty's gracious confirmation and allowance of thoseOrdinances Ordinances.

With reference to the third of these Laws I observe that no provision has been made for compensation to parties wrongfully deprived of land from erroneous registration, fraud or otherwise. It is however very desirable that such provisions should be made in measures of this nature, and they have been accordingly introduced into the South Australian Act 1858, into the New South Wales Act of 1862, and into a recent Ordinance passed in Trinidad.

Unless thereforethere there are objections to this course peculiar to British Columbia of which I am not aware, I am of opinion that the ordinance should be amended by the introduction of the same, or similar, provisions for compensation as are to be found in the Acts referred to above.

I enclose for your information a copy of the New South Wales Act (No. 9 of 1862) which has since been adopted almost verbatim in the Crown Colony of Trinidad.