Colonial Despatches

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of the 29th April last, enclosing a Bill to assimilate the Law affecting the limitation of certain causes of action and suits which you have reserved for the signification of Her Majesty's Pleasure.

I should have had no difficulty in advising Her Majesty to sanction such a measure, had it not been for the insertion of the last paragraph in clause 5 after the words "Foreign Law pleaded."

As the clause now stands, a debtor who has fled from his creditor to British Columbia would be enabled in many cases to defeat the just claim of that creditor by a defence of which he could not have availed himself in the Country where the debt was incurred.

It is for theadvantage advantage of debtors to have a short period of limitation fixed by law, and it is not unreasonable therefore to confine the benefit of any law which shortens the period of limitation to debtors who have resided within the Country during the full term of that period. But it appears to me that it would be very unfair to allow a debtor to set up by way of defence the shorter period of limitation fixed by such law, if he has not fulfilled the reasonable condition imposed by that same law upon those who desireto to avail themselves of its benefits.

Under these circumstances I am unable to advise Her Majesty to sanction this Bill, but you will be at liberty to assent to a Bill of [words missing?] reenacted with the omission of the objectionable paragraph in Clause 5; and I have to desire you to lay this despatch before your Council with a view to their making the necessary amendment.