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I am however to point out that these estimates of cost are to be taken as only approximate. They will be subject to revision when the competitive tenders are received for the contracts, and they may also require to be modified in accordance with whatever directions Her Majesty's Government may give in respect of the contemplated works in the event of their approval of the scheme as a whole.
As the shipping and landing facilities of the Port would be too seriously obstructed by the carrying out of the reclamation works along the entire line of foreshore, I am to request you to be good enough to inform the lot-owners that only two, or at the most three of the sections can be undertaken at the same time, and that commencement will probably be made with those sections at the extreme ends.
With a view to carry out that part of the general scheme which consists of the widening of the present Praya roadway, His Excellency finds that it will be necessary to repurchase from the Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company, Limited, a portion of the reclamation conceded to them in 1886 before the question of a continuous reclamation was mooted; and as this necessity has arisen only in con- nection with the present scheme, His Excellency is of opinion that the cost, in- volving a sum of $104,000 should be added to the general cost of the work, and borne proportionately by the different owners of frontage, the Government included. The amount of this cost has therefore been added to the estimates of total cost above given.
His Excellency notices that, making a liberal allowance for the cost of the work to be done, the private lot-owners will be charged an estimated sum of $2,146,228, in return for which they will receive for their private use and ownership twenty-six and one-fifth acres of building sites (charged only with an annual Crown Rent of $800 per acre) which according to the present market price of land means an estimated total value of $7,910,821, in other words that they will reap an estimated profit of $5,764,593. This estimate however is based on the present value of frontage land, and would probably require to be increased if the fact were taken into account that there would be deep water along the whole of the new frontage thus rendering the land upon it free of the unwholesome exhalations which proceed from the present foreshore, and also saving great expense in lighterage and in the cost of wharves by affording free access to vessels and boats.
But however this may be, as the profit is likely in any case to be far larger than would be the compensation awarded by arbitrators to the existing owners of frontage for the loss of that frontage and the conversion of their marine lots into inland lots, His Excellency deems it possible that Her Majesty's Government may be of opinion that the whole of the work should be done at the public expense for the public profit, and this view, His Excellency thinks, will be rendered the more probable in proportion to the difficulty of coming to terms with those to whom so great a concession is offered. Indeed, speaking for himself and without reference to the opinion which may be formed by Her Majesty's Government, with whom rests the ultimate decision, His Excellency does not regard universal concurrence in the scheme on the part of the lot-owners of such importance as to outweigh the advantage to be gained by the public in carrying out at its own cost the reclamation in front of the lands of the dissentients.
In this connection with a view to obviate wrong inferences in the future, His Excellency desires it to be understood that if this scheme is sanctioned on the terms proposed, the marine lot-holders will obtain the reclamations in front of their lots, not as a matter of right, but simply as a privilege the concession of which happens to be convenient. The foreshore belongs to the Crown; and to the Crown alone belongs the right of reclamation and of ownership in the land reclaimed, the only obligation attaching to the latter being that of compensating the frontage-owner for the difference, if any, between the value of his marine lot and the value of the same land converted into an inland lot by the reclamation in front of it.
As the Governor is anxious to lose no time in transmitting the plans, estimates and other papers connected with this project to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, His Excellency desires me to request you to be good enough to favour me with the final reply of the lot-owners interested at your early convenience.
I have, &c.,
FREDERICK STEWART,
Colonial Secretary,
The Honourable C. P. CHATER.