84
HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
possible to dispose of land immediately, usually because public services are not yet available or because a site is reserved for some future purpose, the land is not left empty or unused, but is granted on a temporary annual licence. This policy particularly facilitates the development of small industries. The 1955-6 revenue from such licences was $3,126,053.
New development programmes often involve the resump- tion of small agricultural lots. In general the Government's policy is to pay cash compensation for such resumptions, although occasionally other land is granted in exchange.
Shortly after the New Territories were incorporated into the Colony a Land Court was set up to hear the inhabitants' claims to tenure of land, and all existing tenures thereby established were confirmed by the Hong Kong Government and recorded in a single Block Crown Lease. Such holdings are known as Old Schedule Lots. The Land Court completed its work in 1905. All land not recorded in the Block Crown Lease was deemed to be unleased Crown Land, leases of which can be sold at public auction, as in Hong Kong and Kowloon. New Territories lands thus acquired are known as New Grant Lots. Certain prescriptive rights over 'Crown Land' have, however, always been recognized either tacitly or by official acknowledgment; most villages have rights of this kind over a greater or less area adjoining them, where they graze their cattle, cut grass, and bury their dead; and no Crown land in the New Territories is put up for auction without giving the nearest village or villages a chance to object. Such objections, whether on economic or geomantic grounds, are usually accepted if reasonable.
Most of the land in the New Territories is separately classified as either agricultural land or building land, and permission has to be obtained from the New Territories Administration for permission to convert land from one status to the other. Minor buildings, such as watchmen's sheds, pigstyes etc., i.e. buildings definitely concerned with