No. 64
Downing Street
15 July 1861
Sir,
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 31 of the 25th of April, transmitting copies of two Proclamations which you have issued for allowing the occupation of Land in Vancouver Island before survey with a preemptive right.
The regulations therein laid down appear to be substantially the same as those establishedManuscript image for British Columbia by your Proclamation of 4th January 1860, and the omissions in that Proclamation to which I called your attention in my despatch No. 23 of the 7th of May 1860 have in a great measure been supplied. But no provision has been made, as suggested in the report of the Emigration Commissioners transmitted to you with my despatch, to meet the case of an occupant dying after considerable expenditure on his land, but without having obtained an improvement certificate, andwithoutManuscript image without leaving an heir capable of occupying the land in his place. Such cases cannot fail to arise, and it would be desirable that some arrangement should be made to allow the heir to dispose of the land so left, even although the expenditure on it had not been sufficient to enable the occupant to claim the improvement certificate.
In other respects the regulations appear to me unobjectionable and I have to convey to you my approval of the Proclamations.
I have the honor to be
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Newcastle