6225.
SIE
No. 348.
(FALKLAND ISLANDS.)
LAW OFFICERS to_COLONIAL OFFICE.
Lincoln's Inn, June 30, 1865.
We are honoured with your commands, signified in Mr. Elliot's letter of the 21st day of June instant, stating that with reference to the opinion contained in our letter of the 28th of March last* on the consequences to be drawn from the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on the right of the Falkland Islands Com- pany to kill wild cattle on their land, he was directed by you to transmit to us the enclosed extract of a report from the Emigration Commissioners.
Mr. Elliot was also pleased to state that this extract brings to light a distinction which does not seem to have been clearly before us at the time when we made our report, and to request that we would consider the facts submitted by the Emigration Commissioners and report whether they affect the opinion which we previously expressed as to the moral right of the Company to compensation.
Mr. Elliot was further pleased to add that the Judicial Committee appear to have considered the Emigration Commissioners, in 1858, as implicitly contracting that any lands thereafter acquired in the northern part of the Falkland Islands should carry the right of killing cattle: whereas what the Commissioners literally did, and all that they imagined themselves to be doing, either literally or by inference, was to inform the Company of the nature of the rights which the law would give them in the southern part of the Islands, and to reject the proposal of the Company that those rights should be enlarged.
In obedience to your commands we have taken this matter into consideration, and have the honour to
Report
That our opinion upon this subject as expressed in our former report is not at all altered or affected by the observations of the Emigration Commissioners.
It was decided by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council that if the animals in question were fera natura, the Company could not be killing them "unlawfully" or "without lawful cause" (and therefore could not be guilty of a violation of the Ordinance of 1853) when they killed them upon land leased to them without any reservation affecting that question by the Crown,
It was also decided that the question whether these animals were feræ naturæ or not had been determined, as between the appellants and the Crown, on settling the terms of the agreement which ended in the grant of 8th September 1859. That agreement may have referred to the tract of land called "Lafonia" only, but animals which were feræ naturæ in that part of the Islands could not be of a different nature elsewhere, and the Company had a right to assume that the Crown would abide by the same view with respect to animals of the same nature on all lands which might be leased to them as well as on those which were granted.
We have, &c. (Signed)
ROUNDELL PALMER. R. P. COLLIER.
The Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, M.P.
&c.
&c.
0 16278.-540.
15.-9/64.
&c.
• No. 320.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 885 x 10
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COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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