The Committee of Marine Lot Holders to the Honorable W. H. Rennie, Esq., Acting for the Colonial Secretary.
HONGKONG, 1st November, 1864.
SIR-We have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 3rd ultimo, and to express our apologies for not replying to it earlier, the cause the absence from Hongkong of our Chairman-has been already intimated to you.
You enclose a despatch No. 82 of 28th September prepared by the Acting Surveyor General in reference to our letter of the 20th September and ask on behalf of His Excellency the Governor,------
1st. For the facts or correspondence on which we rely in support of the statement that the Sea wall and Roadway were passed by the Surveyor General and taken over by the Local Government without protest, &c.
2nd. For the stipulation in the Crown Leases which we had in view when making the observation that full compensation should be made Marine Lot Holders whose property might be damaged by an alteration of the Praya.
To the first question we would reply that we are not at present in possession of any "correspondence" showing that Government commented upon, questioned, or protested against, taking over the line of Praya and roadway under discussion, nor are we aware that such corre- spondence exists--it is however a well known "fact" that the Marine Lot Holders had no control over the construction of the Praya, and we submit the inference is legitimate that the Government is responsible for the work.
To the second question we beg to answer that the stipulation we had in view was that part of the Crown Lease which states that if any por- tion of the ground demised is resumed or taken possession of, being required for the improvement of the Colony or for other public purpose "a full and fair compensation for the said land and the buildings "thereon" shall be paid to the Tenant. You are quite right in stating that no provision is made in a Crown Lease for converting a Marine Lot into an Inland one, but the recently contemplated act:-possible injury by Government to private property for a public purpose, was so analogous in principle to that provided for above, that we had no hesitation in concluding that a similar rate of compensation would, in simple justice, be adopted.
We return the Acting Surveyor General's despatch, after careful perusal, it does not in any way alter or modify the views we expressed on the 20th September last.--We have, &c.
Committee appointed
(Signed,)
15
on behalf of Marine
Lot Holders.
>>
1
FRANCIS CHOMLEY. JOHN S. LAPRAIK. GEORGE J. HELLAND. GEORGE F., MACLEAN.
T. G. LINSTEAD. ROBERT BRAND.
The Acting Colonial Secretary to the Committee of Marine Lot Holders.
No. 923.
COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
HONGKONG, 10th November, 1864.
GENTLEMEN,-His Excellency the Governor having given careful consideration to the answers furnished by you, as Representatives of a certain number of the Marine Lot Holders, to whom the Circular of the 15th August was addressed, is unable to concur in the arguments advanced by you against the extension of the Praya.
His Excellency believes it to be the opinion of competent Judges that sooner or later this extension must take place, and wishes me to point out that the terms offered in the Circular, and to which you take ex- ception, are precisely those under which the last extension was effected. These terms are in accordance with the decisions of the Secretary of State to which I would refer you, and which you will find in the Government Gazettes of 3rd January, and 7th March, 1857.
It is however unnecessary to discuss this part of the proposal further, because the Government Circular was written under the impression that the Marine Lot Holders as a body were anxious to be permitted to extend their lots seaward;--this now appears to have been an error,-and there is no desire on the part of the Government at present to force the im- provement upon the Tenants in opposition to their wishes.
66
His Excellency also feels it necessary to record his dissent from the opinion expressed by you that "if the whole or any part of the present "Sea wall is found to require re-construction, the entire expense of the re-construction should form a charge upon the General Revenues of the 'Colony." The grounds urged in support of this opinion (even assum- ing their entire correctness which His Excellency is by no means prepared to admit) merely tend to show that the Government might, after this lapse of time find some technical difficulty in compelling the Tenants to rebuild the wall under the terms of the original agreement, but the arguments in no way affect the real merits of the question as between the Marine Lot Holders and the General Public.
The material points which you appear to have overlooked are these.----- 1st. That in consideration of the Marine Lot Holders constructing the Praya and Sea wall at their own expense, advantages were given to them by the Public in the shape of either remission of premiums or re- duction of old rates, or in some cases both, far exceeding in value the cost of good work.
2nd. That in the majority of cases bad work was supplied.
3rd. That the Marine Lot Holders have profitted by their bad work, the price paid by them for the Sea wall being far below the rate at which a wall of sufficient strength could have been constructed—and
4th. That in the event of the Praya wall being seriously damaged, it is the Marine Lot Holders themselves who would be principally cou- cerned, inasmuch as the safety of their property would be involved and interruption to the traffic on the Praya would affect them far more than the General Public.
308