768
13
*44 ertaga in
(16).
358
The financial effect of the transaction, as far as the War Department is concerned, cannot be given with accuracy, depending as it does upon the market price of property in Hong Kong, which fluctuates from time to time.
Certain information can, however, be afforded from which their Lordships will be enabled to draw their own deductions.
*P* Block, Queen's Road Barracks, was bought in 1886 for £8,250. No. 4 Police Station was bought in 1887 for £1,095.
In the beginning of 1889 the Surveyor General valued the proposed reclamations in front of the War Department property at from $2.50 to $3.50 per foot super, and the Governor in his Despatch dated the 15th January 1889 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies considered $3 per foot a very low computation, and said that the valuations were based "not on fancy, or mere opinions, but on actual business offers made in this Colony for Marine properties of even less value".
Taking $3 as a correct valuation, the Commissariat premises, with an area of about 1.0.38, or 53,906 square feet, would be worth $161,718 (equal to £25,605 with the dollar at 5/2). A report, however, puts the value of these premises at only £30,474 from the Station dated May 1891.