OLD BRITISH KOWLOON
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unreliable information concerning land tenure in the ceded area received from the Chinese district authorities the British commissioners requested them to issue a proclamation calling on the proprietors and renters of land to surrender their title deeds for examination. This was done, and in the commissioners' words "deeds of all kinds poured in". On comparing these with the lists already furnished by the Chinese district magistrate little or no agreement existed. Moreover the commissioners considered that there was every reason to believe that the whole of the deeds were not in; particularly those of mortgage. An attempt to enquire into boundaries made it clear that the greater part of the inhabitants were squatters of longer or shorter periods who were consequently unwilling to give much information respecting their holdings. The largest group of deeds handed in for inspection pertained to these squatters, and the commissioners described them as:
an extraordinary collection of sub-leases, mortgages, and unstamped documents, ... called white deeds. So numerous, complicated and unintelligible were these, and many of them so new in appearance, that the Commissioners concluded most of them had been manufactured for the occasion".
There were many cross-claims of all kinds and after the most careful investigation they could make the commissioners came to the opinion that the actual rights of owners, lessees, mortgagees or cultivators could only be ascertained as the land was required for use, portion by portion.
Ten villages were named in the report. The houses in six of them were listed and valued. This was not considered necessary in the case of the other four which were situated in the inland portion of the peninsula and were not of immediate concern to government.
The population of Kowloon, then calculated at 5105 persons, was thus composed of diverse elements. This was recognised in the proclamation made by the Hong Kong Government on 24 March 1860 on first taking possession of Tsim Sha Tsui. It reads:
Be it known to you that all the old inhabitants of this site, who are indeed orderly people, will be allowed to live there for the present and follow their various occupations as heretofore, but no new comers will be
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