165
The actual amount of premium paid into the Treasury during the year was $512,997.66, or considerably more than the estimate, which amounted to $350,000. It included the following sums, which do not appear in the above tabulated statement :-
Commutation of Crown rent for Kowloon Marine
.$ 12,650.00
Lot 36, acquired by the Admiralty, Premia derived from sale of rights to erect piers,... 10,107.50 Fees for boundary stones to mark lots,
1,242.50
It will be observed that the New Territory appears for the first time as having contributed to the revenue derived from land sales. The transactions were however unimportant. The following are details of some of the principal land sales :-
NUMBER OF Lot.
AREA. SQUARE FEET.
CROWN RENT. PREMIUM.
PRICE FER SQUARE FOOT.
Marine Lot
282
35.910
$660
$274,025
$7.63
284
13,200
280
133,525
8.78
>>
"
281
*
16,000
220
8,015
.50
Inland Lot
1,704
14,924
102
10,645
71
Shau-ki-wan Lot
396
6,300
44
6,225
.98
Kowloon Inland Lot
1,150
44,000
252
6,652
.15
One lot was put up for auction but the applicant failed to bid for it and his deposit of $100-a sum which is required as a guarantee of good faith in the case of all applications to purchase land-was forfeited to Government.
The extensions granted were mostly unimportant. They included a small area to the North of Conduit Road adjoining Inland Lot 713 and 5 small areas near Tai Hang Village. The only one of consequence was in connection with Kowloon Marine Lot 33 at Fuk Tsiin Heung, the area of the extension amounting to 1.90 acres, most of which was sea-bed in front of the lot.
With a view to carrying out a scheme of providing main thoroughfares in Kowloon, arrangements were made with the owner of the lot mentioned to surren- der to Government a strip of his lot for the purpose of widening the adjacent public road to 100 feet.
The grants on short leases included the site formerly occupied by Crosby's Store and the Education Office (6,626 square feet) which was let for a period of 4 years at an annual rent of $1,200; the portion of the Praya Reclamation in front of the Central Market (23,520 square feet), let on a yearly lease at a rental of $3,900; permission for a dam for water supply purposes in the Sookunpoo Valley for a period of 5 years at an annual rent of $300; a strip of land on the Shaukiwan Road. adjoining Inland Lot 1393, (9,570 square feet) at an annual rent of $100; and an area of 9,900 square feet near Mongkok, formerly held by a squatter, on which a tile factory had been erected and which was let on a 5-years' lease at a rental of $114 per annum.
The permits to occupy land for short periods comprise various areas let for storage and other purposes and a few quarrying permits for the more remote parts of the New Territory.
The grants on nominal terms include a small area (2,500 square feet) for a temple at Tung Lo Wan; another for a cable but for the Telegraph Companies at the junction of Bonham and Pokfulam Roads; an area of nearly an acre at Kai Lung Wan for an extension of the ground used for burying urns containing disinterred remains; an area of 2 acres at Happy Valley for the Asile de la Sainte Enfance; a small area (2,267 square feet) adjoining St. Joseph's Church in Garden Road; and an area of 1.55 acres for the erection of an Anglican Church in Kowloon near the Observatory.
The re-adjustments of boundaries were mostly in connection with lots for which it was not possible, from the nature of the sites, to define the limits accurately on the ground in the first instance and were generally of trivial extent. The only case worthy of special mention is one in which the Cement Company having acquired some small lots, adjoining Kowloon Marine Lot 40, were allowed to enclose some