We have to acknowledge your letter of
24th instant
transmitting for our information extracts of letters received
from
Capt Clarke R.E. formerly Surveyor General of
Victoria,
pointing out the course to be adopted for allowing Settlers
in
British Columbia to occupy and cultivate Crown Land before
it has been surveyed.
2. In obedience to the directions
in the last paragraph of
your letter we return the sketch of an Order in Council which
accompanied
Capt. Clarke's second letter. As this sketch had
been referred for
Governor Douglas' report we abstain from
offering any observations on it. But we may be allowed to
point out that an arrangement which might be inevitable in
Victoria, where the population rose in less than two years from
77,000 to 157,000, would not have the same justification in
B.
Columbia, where at the latest date the
population did not exceed 5,000.