Colonial Despatches

In reply to your Confidential Despatch of the 19th April I may refer you to my public Despatch of this day's date as containing my views upon the subject of the Supreme Courts of British Columbia and Vancouver Island.

The difficulty in dealing with this case has been considerably increased from the fact than an erroneous view of the effect of the British Columbia Act 1866 was so strongly entertained at first in the Colony; and it is to this fact thatI I am inclined to attribute, in part, the continued opposition of the Judges and Attorney General to the proposed measure.

I am fully aware of the objections which have been and may be urged against that measure, but I do not doubt that the attorney general will have exerted himself to insert in the Bill during its passage through the Legislature Clauses calculated either to remove the inconveniences which he anticipates or to mitigate them as far as the circumstances of British Columbia render such mitigation practicable.