190
NEW PRAYA RECLAMATION
SCHEME.
(Daily Press, 4th March.)
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
they will be brought sufficiently near to serve the purpose of providing homes for the working classes.
(Daily Press, 5th March.)
It is now fourteen years since the Hon. The new Praya Reclamation scheme, as C. P. CHATER submitted to H.E. the Officer modified in the letter of the Colonial Fecre- then Administering the Government at tary of the 12th ult., provides, as we have Hongkong a project for the reclamation of seen, for an addition to the available land the foreshore, extending from the Gas Works of this Colony of a strip of ground 520 near West Point to the Swimu ing Bath feet wide and stretching from the Naval at Government Wharf. This scheme, the Yard to the Sugar Refinery at East Point, successful results of which are so familiar up to which limit it may be looked on, we to us, was most bitterly opposed at the time, think, as the final reclamation scheme. In largely owing to a misconception of the front of the existing sea-face, from the motives which actuated it, and partly no Arsenal down to Messrs. JARDINE's premises, doubt to the novelty of the idea at that time. there will be firstly an addition to the pre- But since 1887, we have learnt much and sent Praya, making it up to 75 feet broad; nothing more thoroughly than the urgency secondly, a space, 120 feet deep, for the of more space, more accomodation for our construction of Chinese houses; thirdly, a ever growing population. It is true that new road, 75 feet wide; fourthly, a strip of even in July, 1887, Mr. CHATER was al- land, 225 feet deep, for godowns; and lastly, ready writing: "In Hongkong land has a new Eastern Praya, 75 feet deep. In ad- now attained such high values, in conse-dition to this, there may be a space cleared quence of the increased prosperity of the and levelled inland, on the site of the pre- Colony and the influx of population, that it sent Leighton Hill and Mount Caroline, on is found remunerative even to reclaim sites which may be constructed additional dwell- from the sea at great expense to the owner." ings. The whole of the works, including But if population and high rents were pressing the removal and re-erection of piers, and heavily on the Colouy then, they are pressing the extension formation, sewering, and chan- far more heavily now. Throughout last year nelling of the proposed new streets and new complaints were constantly, we might say Praya wall and roadway, except on such without exaggeration daily, heard of the portions of the foreshore as are situated in difficulty of living for the poorer classes in front of the Government properties, will be Hongkong, the enormous rise of rents, and carried out by the Public Works Depart- the actual lack of any house or room accomo-
ment at the cost of the Marine Lot owners; dation within casy reach of the centre of and the Government will not be called on business. How well founded were such to incur any expense at all, other than such complaints no one with any experience of as is involved, on account of the wall and Hongkong can fail to see. We have urged reclamation in front of Government pro- repeatedly the necessity for more accomoda.perties. Mr. CHATER'S services as inter- tion for the working classes at no great distance from their work. Now the space at the disposal of the inhabitants of this island is limited. Additional living-space can only be obtained in certain definite ways. We
may either bring the present outskirts of the city into closer connection with the centre by some method of traction; or we may add to the habitable part of the island by levelling inland and reclaiming from the sea; or, better still, we may com. bine the two plans. Mr. CHATER's scheme is to add to our available ground a strip of land 520 feet wide, commencing from Ar- senal Street and continuous with the outer line of the Naval Yard and Arsenal exten- sion and running eastwards to the East Point Sugar Refinery. It also, involved originally the cutting down of Morri- son Hill and Mount Shadwell, to which the Government found itself unable to accede; in default of these elevations Mr. CHATER has proposed the levelling of Leighton Hill and Mount Caroline, which the Government thinks may possibly be done. It is unnecessary to point out to those who saw the construction of the existing Praya extension how much money and labour is to be saved by having the materials for filling up the area to be re- claimed close at hand, instead of having as before to bring them by a tedious process from Kowloon. It is therefore to be hoped that no unforeseen difficulty will arise in the case of Leighton Hill and Mount Car- dine, whose removal, moreover, will add still more to the land available for building purposes. Morrison Hill and Mount Shad well are more conveniently situated for the use to which Mr. CHATER proposed to put them, but since the objections of the Naval au- thorities appear to have been insuperable, the two substitutes proposed are the best available, and, provided that the natural corollary of the present scheme, a tramway running to the centre of the city, follows,
[
[March 9, 1901.
says: "The general condition of the Colony is most flourishing, and, with the command of cheap labour, it gives promise of develop- ment into a great manufacturing centre. There is a certainty that whatever land can be added to the island in close proximity to the centre of the Colony's activity must have a With the restoration of peace in the Uhinese a constantly mounting value as time goes on. Empire and the establishment of commer- cial facilities hitherto denied to foreigners, the volume of trade flowing toward Hong- kong cannot but increase enormously. As matters stand now, we are not prepared to meet this increase by expansion on the island itself. Mr. CHATER sets forth the way in which we can prepare ourselves to do so, and we feel confident that the Marine Lot holders will recognise that in supporting the scheme they will consult at the same time the Colony's interests and their own.
THE POWERS AND MANCHURIA.
Daily Press, 6th March.) Affairs in connection with the Russo- Chinese agreement about Manchuria appear- to be reaching their climax. The report of the Times correspondent at Peking to the journal which he represents indicates that Russia's regular policy is on the point of meeting with its usual reward. By her support, secret and open, given to the (bi- nese Court after the capture of Peking, and her opposition to the punishment demands of Germany and England, Russia has suc- ceeded in persuading the credulous Chinese rulers that she is a true friend to China. It may well be suspected, moreover, that money has played its part in negotiations, as is usual where officials of the type employed mediary between the Government and the by the reactionary Court are concerned. As Marine Lot holders are accepted, and to Russia's protestations of disinterested- what he has to do is to persuade the ness and her assurances that she desires no latter to agree to the Government's de- fresh territory, we cannot feel surprised that mands. These are briefly that the holders they are worth nothing. Russian faith is but shall constitute a general fund for defraying the modern equivalent of the Punica fides the cost of the works and shall bind them of the Roman world; indeed the Cartha-' selves individually to take up whatever part ginians are wronged by the comparison, for is allotted to thein of the general reclama against them we have only the unsupported tion, each depositing as a guarantee 25 per charges of their enemies. The history of cent. of the total value of the General Fund, Russia's growth in the Nineteenth Century, which 25 per cent. will be forfeited to the on the other hand, is open, and even those Crown in event of a failure to take up the who most admire what is really a wonderful allotment. On the completion of the works, series of achievements cannot gloss over the each holder will be asked to take out a absolute disregard of written and spoken Crown Lease for his allotment, paying an wolds which accompanied them. But such Annual Crown Rent of $200 per quarter acre. protests as have from time to time been The leases will be for 99 years, with an option made have been too feeble to cause more of renewal at a Crown Rent fixed by the thau a smile from the Russian diplomatists. Governor for the time being for a further Only in the matter of Kuldja in 1881 did term of 99 years. All costs of resumptions Russia recede from an aggressive position of land and compensations to landowners in answer to remonstrances. In the matter involved in the scheme will be paid by the of this Manchurian convention the remon- Marine Lot owners. It is held that a pre-strances, we fear, are likely to be weak, and mium of at least twenty-five cents a square foot should be paid to Government by holders for every foot of building land re- claimed and handed over to them. Finally the principle of sectional reclamation adopted in the case of the Western Praya reclamation will be followed, and the Lot holders will bear the expenses of a pre- liminary survey and estimate.
From the above it will be seen that the Government strikes a good barga n, for the gain in rateable area and future land sales will be very large indeed, and the ex- penditure will be nil. But the Marine Lot holders, too, having past history to guide them, and the ever increasing pros- perity of the Colony to encourage them for the future, have little reason to hesitate. In the report, published this year and now to hand, of Hongkong in 1899, HE. the Governor's concluding sentence will meet with general agreement. Sir HENRY BLAKE
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they will certainly be foolish if the Powers are prepared to see them disregarded. Dr. MORRISON calls them "academic remon. * strances," but it appears that Japan at least bas had the courage to back up her protest to China with an intimation that she will require an equivalent for any special advan- tages conceded to Russia. Now the special advantages conceded by the Munchurian convention amount to nothing less than the removal of all Chinese troops from Moukden and Fengtien province, the destruction of all military works not in Russian occupation, and the maintenance of a Russian army of occupation" so soon as the Russian Govern- ment is satisfied that peace and good order have been restored in the province," i.e., pre- sumably at some date in the Greek Kalends. To one clause in the convention (which, we published in our issue of the 29th January) even China is reported to have objected, and that is the seventh, which provides that