No. 63
[2142, CO 60/1, p. 561; received 28 February 1859]
Victoria, Vancouver's Island
30 December 1858
Sir,
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch,
Regulationsmining
Miningregulations
marked Confidential, of the 14th of October
last;
October last; = [Lytton to Douglas, 14 October 1858, CO 398/1, p. 107](cdc:B587029A), Conf.
in which you have been pleased to favor me with the impressions derivedfrom
from the perusal of the Regulations framed for the management of the
Gold Fields in British Columbia, and it is not without reason that
I now express the deepest sense of obligation for the searching
investigation which you have given to that subject.
2. I was sensible from the outset, of the arduous nature
of the task of framing regulations so perfectly adapted for a
comparatively unknowncountry country, as to be unobjectionable,
especially for a country situated as is British Columbia, in the
close vicinity of a powerful state whose inhabitants would for
a time at least form the great bulk of the population.
3. It was to establish a legal control over the adventurers
who were rushing, from all sides, into the country, to anticipate their
ownattempts attempts at legislation and to accustom them to the restraints of
lawful authority, that I prepared and issued the gold regulations.
I am therefore not wedded to the established system, as I hardly
ventured to hope, that it would be found in all respects so well
adapted to the people and the country, as to form the permanent mining
code of British Columbia.
4. No seriousobjection objection has been offered by the miners to that
section of the Law, which regulates the size of mining claims, but
Licensesminingobjections to
Mininglicensesobjections to
there has been, and I fear always will exist a strong dislike to the
payment of a monthly licence fee, and the enforcement of that system
might ultimately lead as it did in Australia to fatal interruptions,
of the public Peace.
5. There are several other objections to the monthly licence fee,
considered as a source of revenue, such asthe the cost of collection,
its equal pressure upon the prosperous and unsuccessful Miner, and its
frequent evasion—objections which apply with peculiar force to
the extensive and hardly accessible Gold Districts of British Columbia.
6. I shall not fail to consider with care your suggestions, and
to revise the Law as it respects the extraction of Gold by means of
machinery from Quartz rocks and other classes ofmining mining requiring
the large investment of capital.
7. My attention was in fact closely devoted to a revision of
the Gold regulations, when your Despatch on the subject was received.
The expediency of abolishing the monthly licence Fee, in
Licensesminingobjections to
consequence of its obnoxious features, and of introducing the system
which has been found to work with such happy effects in Victoria,
was an ideanaturally naturally suggested by the consideration of the subject
and we should not have hesitated in adopting that system with perhaps
some modification in details, but for the difficulty of dealing with the
export duty on gold, which has proved so prolific a source of revenue
in Victoria as more than to compensate for the surrender of the
monthly licence fees.
8. The imposition of a duty at present onthe the export of Gold in
Export duty on goldobjections to
British Columbia, would it is feared be comparatively unproductive of
revenue, besides having the effect of diverting the course of trade,
which it has been the hitherto successful object of all our legislation
to retain within our own possessions, to
Samiamoo
1, Samiamoo = wrong reference??
Samiamoo (Semiahmoo) was located on Semiahmoo Bay, just south of the
49th parallel. Gazette, 13 August 1858.
and other American frontier Towns. The miners returning with their gains
to California,would would naturally seek to evade the payment of the duty,
cross over the frontier, and take the road to those places; instead of
coming direct to Victoria which is now enriched by their visits.
9. We have as yet found no solution of this difficulty, but I am
of opinion that it will nevertheless be advisable at once to abolish
the monthly licence fees, and to replace them by an annualpayment
payment—probably exceeding the payment annually levied on miners in
the Colony of
Victoria.
9, of Victoria. = abolish monthly licenses
The initial license fee in Victoria, Australia, was £1 per month, which
was replaced, first, by an annual fee of £1, plus a £10 per acre on
alluvial soil, and third by an export tax of 2 shillings 6 pence per
ounce of gold. See [Lytton to Douglas, 14 October 1858, CO 398/1, p. 107](cdc:B587029A).
10. It may also be advisable to adopt the other features of the
Victorian system—a subject which will have my early and anxious
Executive Council
consideration, with the aid and advice of my executive Council, which
will be composed of Lieutenant Governor Moody and the other officers who
Moody, Col. Richard C.
have lately arrived fromEngland
England
10, arrived from England = Executive Council
An Executive Council was not formally authorized until 1863.
Douglas began shortly to meet with Moody and Begbie, encouraged to do
so, no doubt, by Lytton's suggestion that he form such a "council of
advice" to assist him in his duties. ([Lytton to Douglas, 31 July 1858, CO 410/1, p. 147](cdc:V587206).)
He provisionally appointed Moody and Begbie to the "Council" of
British Columbia on 1 March 1859, but it is unlikely that this body ever
formally met. For further information, see James E. Hendrickson,
Introduction, Journals of the Colonial Legislatures of the
Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, 1851-1871,
5 vols. (Victoria: Provincial Archives of British Columbia, 1980), pp.
xl-xli.
11. It will be our study to frame such regulations as will give
satisfaction to the people at large, and to create a public revenue, with
the smallest possible amount of pressure on the trade and resources of
the Country.
I have etc.
James Douglas
Governor