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4.10.05. H.Hmy.
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THE RIGHT HONORABLE
LORD STANLEY
H. M. PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES, '
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My Loan,
THE period has at length arrived, when, as Owners of land and property at HONGKONG, we can no longer refrain from addressing ourselves direct to H. M.'s Government, in the confident hope, that a plain statement of facts will induce H. M. Advisers, to sanction a material modification of the System, which has hitherto been in operation, occa- sioning results alike injurious to the interests of the mercantile Community, and the real and essential interests of the settlement.
It will scarcely be necessary for us, in the first place, to submit, that shortly after the Island was first ceded, or taken possession of by II. M. Plenipotentiary in China, in the early part of 1841, a public sale of land was held, at which it was stipulated, that the "terms and tenure of all property would hereafter be defined by H. M. Government."
But in a letter of H. M. Plenipotentiary, dated 17th June, 1841, copy of which is hereunto annexed, an expectation was held out, that the lands would be granted in fee simple, for one or two years purchase at the rates paid at the public sale; or that they should be charged only with a nominal quit rent, if that form of tenure continued to obtain.
This suggestion on the part of H. M. Plenipotentiary, originated in the well known fact, that the very limited quantity of ground, available for Building purposes on the proposed site of the present Town of Victoria, was the occasion of great competition, and the eventual payment of a Scale of Rent, which that Officer naturally and truly apprehended, would, if enforced, be detrimental to the progress and prosperity of the settlement.
During the time which intervened between the occupation of the Island by H. M. Government, in March 1841, and the Treaty of Nankin, in June 1843, a period of upwards of two years, the Local Government of Hongkong used every endeavour, both by facilities tem. porarily offered to early occupants of land, and the threat of penalty of forfeiture of their purchases to all who did not commence building, to induce the British Merchants to remove from Macao to the new Settlement, and nothing was, up to that date, said or done, to induce holders of land to apprehend, either that the promises of H. M. Plenipotentiary would not be strictly fulfilled, or that they would be placed in a more unfavorable situation, than parties similarly circumstanced in other British Colonies.
Large sums were consequently expended in the erection of Dwellings and Warehouses in the New Town of Victoria, to an extent, which would have rendered it injurious to all, and ruinous to many, to be compelled to abandon their property; and it was not until the early' part of 1843, that it was notified: "That H. M. Government did not see it to recognise sales or Grants of land, that had been made by or under any Authority whatsoever, up to the period of the exchange of the ratification of the Treaty of Nankin."
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But as H. M. Government must have been well aware, that the Colonists had acted with perfect reliance on the good faith and justice of their Government, this order was so far qualified, that on 23d August 1843 it was notified:
"That an Enquiry should be instituted into the Equitable claims of all holders of land
,, to a confirmation either permanent or temporary of their Titles, so far as they could be con-
,, firmied consistently with a just regard to the interests of Society at large."
In the early part of 1844 we were, for the first time, made acquainted with the terms on which the Crown Lands were to be held, and Sir Henry Pottinger, then Governor of the Island, published the forms of the Leases required to be executed.
The conditions of these Leases were universally considered so unusual, and so certain in their operation to be ultimately injurious, not only to the holders of Land, but to the future welfare of the Colony, that we were compelled to protest most solemnly against them in a correspondence with the Governor, dated in March 1844, from which correspondence we beg to subjom the following extract:
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"We may be allowed to point out to Y. E., that an adherence on the part of Govern. ment to the proposed terms of Lease would be eventually the means of placing those, who first commenced improving their property in Hongkong, and who from the sums already ez- pended cannot withdraw from the occupation of their Buildings without ruinous loss, on most unfavorable terms, compared with others, who have the option of resorting to places where land can be bought, or rented, on much more moderate conditions; and we submit, that it ,, can never be the wish or intention of H. M. Government to place the early occupants of
Land in such a position."
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No redress has however been granted; and disgarding the future prosperity of the Set- tlement, in the desire to raise a comparatively large temporary revenue, the Local Govern- ment has persisted in forcing unusually hard conditions on the Land holders, who had been led into a large expenditure of money, owing to their faith in the promises, under which the