Richard MacDonnell proposed to the Secretary of State that the Surveyor General of Hongkong should receive a fee of one per cent on the amounts realized by the sale of Crown Lands, equivalent, it stated to £100 a year.
3. In Colonial Office despatch No. 11 of the 18th of September 1867 the Duke of Buckingham, replying to Governor MacDonnell approved of this proposition, and the then Surveyor General and his next successor accordingly received the benefit of this allowance.
4. On my appointment to Hongkong the land sale fees were in accordance with my recommendations to Government with respect to the disposal of land. I felt that it would be more conducive to the honour of Government if I were to abstain from deriving any personal advantage from the alienation of Crown Lands sold at my own instance, and actuated by this feeling, I allowed all my fees or commission to lapse to the Colonial Treasury.
Since I have held my present office, the commission on the sale of land have continued to remain unappropriated by me with a single exception which I think it only right to mention, lest it might be thought that I had, at any time, drawn money which had been duly sanctioned by Her Majesty's Government.
5. As however it devolved on the Surveyor General to make recommendations for my benefit. In 1876 and 1877 the completion of the Ordnance Surveys of the Colony during which...