Colonial Despatches

I have the honor to acknowledge your Letter of the 20th instant enclosing an Ordinance No 12 of 1864 passed by the Legislature of British Columbia entitled "An Ordinance to increase the facilities for registering documents relating to real property."

2. The Colonial Attorney General in his report on the Ordinance explains that manyEnglish English Deeds cannot under the existing Law be registered merely from the want of a few additional unimportant words. The first object therefore of the Ordinances is to give to Notarial Certificates of the execution of Deeds made without the Colony relating to real property within it, the force of acknowledgements under the British Columbia Land Registry Act 1861, provided the Registrar chooses to accept such proof of the execution of the Documents. This proviso is to guard against the abuse of the facility thus accorded.

3. The second object of theOrdinance Ordinance is to render compulsory the registration of all future Crown grants before they are issued. For want of such a provision, and an early Registry of grants, litigation has already been occasioned, and the evil if not remedied would increase by lapse of time. The fee for registration is a uniform one of 5s/ which the Attorney General states is less than one half of the amount payable under the previous Ordinance of 1861.

4. I have the honor to report that no objection occurs to me on this Ordinance, and I wouldsubmit submit that it may be left to its operation.