Many not present + present where
4. where eligible
were
cold
had afterwards to pay for them, in addition
to the ground rent, very large premiums to speculators, absolute men of straw, who had shortly before monopolized them; and
when it was found out, year after year, that Hongkong was anything but a residence at
all, unable to the transaction of business very expensive, and
the mainland, was
not exactly free of taxation, from which residents at the finer ports of trade were exempt, and moreover that the advantage of
security to person and property
there possessed
was not
to render it a
was no
a question of much importance,
greater
matter
for
wonder that
became
the value of land at Hongkong "small and beautifully less", that the first purchasers at high rents would
joyfully have abandoned their
+ property,
could they have got
it back a small
portion only of what their buildings
cost them; and that some did abandon
thousands of pounds worth of property rather than be subject to further loss by the payment of ground rent. It will hardly be denied that not
a few of the original
settlers, Europeans
as well as
Chinese
have thus found themselves compelled to desert the colony.
Under the present system of
tenure, the lessee of a parcel of ground
cannot divide his lot and sublet it in
small portions to others so as to render his devisees free of the Government's
responsible to Government for the
ground rent, the
ment looks
for payment to the original lessee, and does not regard the defaults of the sub-lessees. This seems to be disadvantageous,
by preventing the expenditure of money by small capitalists on plots of ground of size suited to their means.