Colonial Despatches

I have received your despatch No 189 of the 6th of July transmitting for my approval and confirmation, a return of the provisional appointments which you have made to offices in British Columbia between 1st Januaryand and 30th June 1859.

I am unable in the absence of more full information than is supplied by your despatch, to confirm these appointments. I cannot impress upon you too strongly the necessity of confining the expenditure of British Columbia within the limits of the revenue, and, in the present state of the finances of the Colony, of maintaining its establishments on the most economical scale consistent with a dueregard regard to the proper administration of the government and the preservation of order in the Country. At the present moment when the efflux of population from the Colony is great and constant, I cannot feel satisfied of the necessity for the creation of so large a number of new appointments, involving an additional annual charge of nearly Three thousand pounds (£3,000) on it's resources.

I have therefore to instruct you to furnish mewith with a return of the whole Civil Establishment of British Columbia distinguishing the appointments that have been sanctioned by the Secretary of State and affording me a full explanation of the grounds for the creation of those which you have provisionally established and of the nature and extent of the duties attached to them. Pending the receipt of this report, I am compelled to withhold my confirmation of the appointmentsin in the list that accompanies your despatch for the creation of which the sanction of the Secretary of State has not been previously given.

I have also to instruct you to transmit to the Secretary of State in future quarterly returns in the Form of which I annex a copy of all changes in offices or new appointments in the Colony.