Colonial Despatches

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Grace's Despatch No 33 of the 15th June forwarding a letter from the Deputy Governor of the Hudson Bay Co complaining complaining of the operation of the Customs Laws of British Columbia upon the interests of that Company.

2. Your Grace has taken so clear and just a view of the case that it is scarcely necessary for me to enter into the merits of the general question, but to prove to your Grace the futility of the complaint, and to exhibit the general working working of the Customs Laws in British Columbia with regard to the business of the Hudson Bay Co, I forward herewith a very clear and able Report from Mr Hamley the Collector of Customs, accompanied by correspondence from the Officers of the Company at Victoria, by which it will be seen, that not only has it been the practice to allow a drawback on the goods sent into the Russian Territory, but that in a recent case case where goods were forwarded by the Company in transit through British Columbia to Colville in the American Territory, no duty whatever was either levied or paid. Although the Directors of the Company in England could not at the date of their letter be aware of the latter transaction, yet it appears somewhat remarkable remarkable, that the data before them from which they reviewed the case, should not have supplied so important an item of information as the former.

3. With regard to the alleged "exaction" of Customs duties at Victoria, your Grace has already pointed out to the Company that the law is optional on vessels going North of Frasers River to to pay duty at Fort Victoria or New Westminster, and that this provision must be intended as a convenience rather than a restriction. As Mr Hamley remarks It was expressly to save the Company's servants the trouble and delay of coming to New Westminster that permission was given to them them to pay their duties at Fort Victoria from which Port the Vessel sails. An objection on their part to this arrangement is simply absurd, but if from any unaccountable reason they prefer it, they are at all times at liberty to bring their vessels to New Westminster for clearance and the payment of duties.

No overt complaints have ever been made by the Company's Officers Officers on the spot regarding this convenience, and I need scarcely say they do not avail themselves of the option of clearing at New Westminster, although since the removal of the Treasury to that place, the duties in such cases have been paid to the Collector of Customs at New Westminster—the Vessel Vessel meanwhile clearing from Fort Victoria as heretofore.