423
( 6 )
26. It is to this precedent doubtless that Mr. CHATER alludes when he pleads an exemption from money premium. Mr. CHATER says in his letter he fears this charge might throw cold water on his project and frustrate its realization.
27. As the total area of sea proposed to be converted into land is 59 acres and as only 32 acres will be kept for building on, and the remaining 27 be given up to Government for roads and streets, it will be seen that already the Govern- ment takes largely from the lot-owners in land in lieu of money, and if past Gov- ernments in order to encourage and promote the creation of new building sites for the growing city, have deemed it politic to levy no premium on sea reclamations. I think the same policy should with greater reason be observed now,
for never were inducements for the creation of fresh building land more required than at the pre- sent moment. The City which is hemmed in by an almost perpendicular wall of mountain at the back and by the sex along the front, has already become danger- ously congested, and finds itself in the direst need of room for expansion. For this reason, any and every reclamation scheme that will give more room should be welcome to Government.
28. Touching the question of annual Crown Rents leviable on the proposed new sea lots: it is necessary to explain that the present marine lots along the Praya baving been sold at different periods, there is no uniformity of rate in the rents which have been charged. Sites sold in the earliest times of the Colony when land was a drug still pay the miserably small rent of former days. As the island became more populated and some demand for building ground along the sea-board arose, rents were raised, and continued to be raised at each successive auction sale of land. We see therefore the greatest disparity in the rates of Crown Rent paid by different lots, some paying four times as much as others.
I do not think this disparity should be continued in the proposed new sea lots. I am of opinion these should pay one uniform rate of rent along the entire line of shore. I would rate them all at the maximum, ie., $200 per quarter acre per annum. This will make an aggregate Rent-Roll of $25,000.
29. As inland lot leases in this town are, generally speaking, not so valuable as marine leaseholds, it is not impossible the promoters of this reclamation scheme may upon its completion, appeal to Government to transfer their present Praya lots to the category of inland lots with reduced annual Crown Rent. If such an appeal were made there would be but one reply and that in the negative, for the depreciation of the lots situated along what is now the sea (if any depreciation occurred at all) would be due to the deliberate act of the lot-owners themselves in having interposed new land between their present frontages and the harbour. It will be better to stipulate beforehand therefore that no request of the kind, if made, will be granted. But so far from being depreciated my own conviction is that the present value of the inner row of lots will be maintained if not enhanced by the proposed new reclamations for if the scheme is realized the inner road (at present the Praya) will front a great and important main avenue of noble width, nearly as wide as Regent Street in London with double tram-lines and enormous business traffic. Indeed I am disposed to view this proposed new inland avenue as a more important thoroughfare for shops and business premises than the proposed new marine embankment itself, and to estimate the value of frontages on the avenue at the same, if not a larger figure than the future Praya frontages.
30. Last but not least comes the important provision that must be made by Government for securing that the 32 acres of reclamation shall be built upon subject only to such sanitary regulations as may be laid down or to such lease conditions as the Government shall dictate. If left to themselves the native landlords will speedily cover the embanked lands with fever dens of the usual Hongkong type. It will be deemed a great hardship if the Government insists on light and ventilation, or on 15 foot back yards, and such other requirements as will fit the proposed new tenements for human habitation. But on this point the Colonial Government will, I apprehend, be as firm as a rock.
31. Mr. CHATER's scheme does not extend further east than the Central Dis- trict of Victoria. He stops short at Murray Pier because Murray Pier is the boundary line of the Naval and Military premises, and because, obviously, it is no use considering reclamations in the Eastern town, as long as the Eastern town remains cut off from the larger and far more important Western town by the absence of any Praya Embankinent.
>
(7)
32. The continuation of the Praya along the foreshore in front of the Naval Yard and Military Cantonments has been attempted by every Governor since the days of Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL. Each Governor has failed and these failures are deplored in the Colony as public calamities. It is felt that a great and populous city like Victoria should not continue to be subjected year after year to such a grievous hindrance to its progress and prosperity as arises from the inability of the Imperial Departments in London to make any concession to the Colony in the matter of this Praya junction.
33. The connexion of Eastern and Western Victoria by a marine embankment has, however, with each successive year become a matter of so much greater im- portance to the commercial prosperity of the Colony and not only to its prosperity but to the health of its people, that it is to be hoped Her Majesty's Govern- ment will not remain much longer inactive in the matter. Our present over- crowding, if it continues, must eventually culminate in some terrible epidemic that will move all England. We must find more building room for the population or else shut out the yearly influx from China. The people cannot be driven to build in the Eastern town for it is severed from the Western Districts where mostly lie the avocations of the trader and the work of the labourer, and where the ship- ping are anchored, but if the Eastern town could be joined by a marine embank- inent to the Western town and thus enable a tramway to be laid along the entire sen-board, the people might be induced to settle in the Eastern town by these faci lities of communication, and the Government would thus be able to avert those dangers to the Public Health which are clearly looming in the distance.
34. It is well known that the War Office is in great want of further building room for barracks. The Praya junction project supplies this military want in the most complete manner by the formation of nine acres of immensely valuable build- ing land. The value of these nine acres of reclamation at current rates is $1,568,160. The War Office will not contribute towards the building of the Praya junction or towards the reclamation, but at the same time the War Office has stated that it desires to keep all the land which the Colonial Government will reclaim at the cost of the local ratepayers. In other words the War Office contemplates receiving land to the extent of over one million and a half of dollars, but will not assist in any way towards the realization of the work that is to benefit it to this extent. War Office will not contribute its share of the cost of the Praya junction, then the least it might do, would be to let the Colony retain for auction sale as much of the land reclaimed as would at all events reimburse the cost of building the Praya embankment opposite the Cantonments.
If the
35. The case is different with the Naval Authorities. The Lords of the Ad- miralty have said "the interposition of a Marine embankment between the Royal Naval Yard and the sea will detract from the efficiency of the Naval Establishments, and we are not therefore favourable to the scheme; under any circumstance we will not contribute anything towards its realization." This objection however has now been met on the part of the Colonial Government by offering to carry the marine embankment on a series of overhead arches along the Naval Yard frontage so that access to and from the beach would not be in any way obstructed. The proposition met with the approval of Sir WILLIAM DOWELL, when he was Com- mander-in-Chief in the China Station, and was I believe recommended by him to the Admiralty, but I am not sure that it was accepted by my Lords Commissioners. The attitude of indifference, if not disfavour, to the Praya junction scheme adopted by the Admiralty is however readily intelligible, for Naval interests will derive no marked financial benefit from the scheme, but what is not easy to understand is that the War Office should not have appreciated the advantage of co-operating in a scheme which enables it to become possessed of building land to the extent of nine acres fitted for barrack sites and bearing a market value of over a million and a half of dollars, a sum to be easily obtained should the Military Department ever wish to realize. I say nothing of the advantage to the Arsenal of deep water for the landing and embarking of military stores, or of the sanitary boon which the conversion of the present noxious mud foreshore along the Cantonments into a healthy sea-frontage would prove to the Garrison.
36. When the question of the Praya junction between Western and Eastern Victoria has been settled with the War Office, and communication established be. tween the two towns the larger question of sea-reclamations along the entire Eastern