3
months in 1948/49, (b) to a decline in property values from their peak in 1948, and (c) to the falling off in the number of individual land transactions already noted in para. 2 of this report. The monthly figures are shown in the last column of Table III.
Crown Rents.
The number of lots on the Hong Kong and Kowloon Rent Roll was 13,657, an increase of 391 on the previous year's figure of 13,266, and the total Crown Rents amounted to $932,445.71, an increase of $70,043.63. Table VII gives particulars by localities, and a comparison with the previous year's Table VII increases in various districts notably 215 Victoria Inland Lots, 44 Rural Building Lots, 85 Kowloon Inland Lots, and 64 New Kowloon Inland Lots.
There have been few changes in the Village Crown Rent Roll. The number of lots has decreased by 10 to 1,912, and the total Crown Rent by $32.95 to $1,239.60. Table VIII gives details by localities.
During the year the Crown Rents of 260 sections of land were determined under the Crown Rents (Apportionment) Ordinance, 1936, and a total of $3,051.00 was collected in fees for such determinations. These figures compare with the pre- vious year's figures of 192 sections, and $2,572.00 for fees.
Airfield (Kai Tak) Extension & Reversion Ordinance, 1948.
The settlement of claims under this Ordinance formed one of the many additional burdens upon the Land Office, in a year in which the pressure of work generally has been extremely high. The Japanese having called for the surrender of all title deeds when paying out the meagre compensation allowed by them for the land resumed, the vast majority of claimants were unable to produce any title deeds to the Land Office in support of their claims to the further compensation to which they became entitled under the present Ordinance: Each such case had therefore to be exhaustively investigated to establish the claimant's identity and his title to the property. By the end of the year under review the bulk of the work had been completed, and out of 444 claims received in the Land Office (which figure did not include claims falling under the jurisdiction of the New Territories Land Office) 399 had been paid in cash, and 13 more had been passed for settlement by grants of land in lieu of cash. The total of compensation paid out by the Land Office was $2,688,553.08, and this added to