COPY
Sir,
359
20014
ENCLOSURE 7
Real C NOV DE
Hong-Kong, 29th. August, 1898.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt
of your letter No.563 dated the 5th. instant with reference to
the recent decision of the Right Honourable the Secretary of
State for the Colonies to reduce the period of land tenure
in future in the Colony from one of 999 years to 75 or at the
outside 99 years.
2. Complying with your request for my views on
the subject, I have the honour to state that this decision if
permanently enforced, would materially tend to keep away legi-
timate extension investors in landed property in the Colony.
The form of a virtual perpetual lease (1.e. that for 999 years)
beuficial has long ago been recognised as the only really purificiał
form of lease that would encourage investments in leasehold
property in the Colony to any very large extent.
3. Indeed, from the very earliest period of the
Colony's settlement purchasers of land although saguinely, ne-
vertheless honestly believed themselves entitled to receive
perpetual leases for the land they had originally bought.
The Hon. R. D. Ormsby,
A
4.
Director of Public Works.