TWO ESSAYS ON THE CH'ING ECONOMY OF HSIN-AN
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administration" was first implemented in the Sheung Yu Tung (**). The Land Court recognized the status of fourteen tax-lords, and granted them a total of 252.33 acres of unclaimed crown land. The taxlords, however, were in no hurry to select the land, and it was only after considerable prodding (over a period of several months) that they made their choices. The problems which arose over the plots selected were to plague district officers for years. Information regarding potentially profitable land was secured from bribed government clerks, with the result that speculation on railway land became rampant. Another problem arose when taxlords staked claims to "fung shui" groves and proceeded to extort and blackmail neighboring villages by threatening to chop down the trees for firewood. As a result, taxlord schedules for the tung were not completed till August, 1909; references to taxlord claims crop up in CSO reports well into the 1920's.20
By the time the Land Court got around to hearing the Un Long claims, little sympathy existed in the colonial service for the compensation plan. It is not surprising, then, that the Tang claims were dismissed as invalid, a decision which elders in the neighborhood still relate to the fact that the Tangs led the resistance. Official records regarding this decision have apparently been lost;29 thus, our only data on the nature of taxlordism refer to Sheung Yu Tung.*
The most complete account of the taxlord settlement is provided in CSO6269 of 1909. Of the fourteen taxlords compensated throughout the tung, nine are dealt with in this file, which was compiled over the period 1904-1910. The table below summarizes these nine settlements.
Table II: Taxlord Settlements, Sheung Yu Tung
Taxlord Amount granted Located in: Tang Yung Peng 45.0 acres Fan Ling Liu Yin Yu 13.0 acres Man Lai Ngam Man Fung Chi 9.5 acres Tang Yui Shan 16.0 acres Pang Shin Han 65.0 acres Fan Ling, Hau Yeuk Fan Ling 9.0 acres 60.0 acres Ho Sheung, Lam Tsun Luk Yeuk 11.0 acres Hau Chak Wing Hang Chung Hin 4.8 acres Man Cham Tsum*The claims by Tangs over Tsing Yi Island were originally labelled.