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is perilled by the circumstances about to be detailed, I venture to hope that your Lordship will pardon me making the case known to you, which too, as much from a regard to the public principle involved and to the prosperity of this settlement, as from feelings of private arousal, and which I shall state with the utmost conciseness possible.
After the occupation of this Island, a number of allotments of Land were made by the constituted Authorities to individuals for building purposes, to be held subject to such conditions as to their tenure, as should afterwards be determined by this Government, and under a general understanding, that the party obtaining the allotment was to expend a certain sum on the ground within six months after they received it; although this latter condition has not hitherto been rigidly enforced.
One division of these allotments consists of what are known as "Raglan lots", which usually measure fifteen feet in front by forty feet in depth, and have been freely granted chiefly to Chinese for the purpose of building small shops upon them.
One of the last grants which have been made has been lost to Captain Mech of Her Majesty's 49th Regt., their holding the appointment of Government Land Officer of thirteen of these small lots for the purpose of the erection of shops. Captain Mech thereafter contracted with a Chinese for the completion of the work, and had expended about four hundred dollars...