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his Heirs, Executors, Administrators or Assigns, at a valuation, to be fairly and impartially made by the Surveyor of Her said Majesty, Her Heirs, Successors, or Assigns, and upon the exercise of such power the term and estate hereby created shall respectively cease, determine and be void.”
5. Your Petitioners could not be deprived of their said lease or of the full benefits thereof, except in virtue of the said proviso and upon payment of full and fair compensation.
The Appendix III.
6. In and about the year 1889 certain proposals were laid before the Government of the Colony and the public for the reclamation from the sea, for the benefit of the Marine Lot Holders and at their expense, of the foreshore immediately outside the line of the existing praya or sea wall from the Military Cantonments to the east, to a point to the westward of your Petitioners' property, Marine Lot 184, and to facilitate the carrying out of this work an Ordinance, No. 16 of 1889, "Praya Reclamation Ordinance, 1889," was passed and became law, by which it was provided that any lessee who should not, in the manner and within the time defined by the Ordinance, notify his acceptance of the scheme and his willingness to concur therein and contribute thereto should have no claim to compensation in any depreciation of his lot by reason of the said works, but the Governor might, if he thought fit, award to him such a sum of money or such a Crown Lease of new land as he might in his absolute discretion think sufficient as and by way of compensation for any injury that such lessee should sustain by the works authorised by the Ordinance.
7. Your Petitioners did not signify their acceptance of the proposals embodied in the said Ordinance, but objected thereto as the land to be reclaimed in front of their said Marine Lot, and to be assigned to them in the event of their concurrence in the scheme, was too small in area in comparison with the area of their said Marine Lot, and the profit to be derived therefrom bore no proportion to the loss your Petitioners would sustain during the carrying on of the said reclamation by the obstruction of their access to the sea and by the immense depreciation of the value of their land and buildings, by the lot being converted from a Marine to an Inland Lot.
8. Your Petitioners objected to the said scheme and to the Ordinance giving effect to the same and refused to concur therein or to accept the proposals made to them thereunder, but beyond such protest and refusal took no further steps, relying upon the provision in the said Ordinance for the payment of compensation and upon the promise made by the Government of the Colony in the Colonial Secretary's letter of the 23rd June, 1888, to Mr. Chater, forming part of the correspondence hereinbefore referred to and hereto annexed, defining the principle on which compensation would be awarded, that is, that the non-assenting Holders of Marine Lots on their conversion into Inland Lots by the works of the Reclamation, would be compensated to the extent of the difference between the value of their lots as Marine and Inland Lots.
9. The said Ordinance was ultra vires of the Legislature of the Colony of Hongkong in so far as it deprived your Petitioners of the right granted them by Her Majesty the late Queen to hold their said lot of land as a Marine Lot with all the rights of immediate access to the sea appertaining to a Marine Lot and not to be deprived of the said land with the rights and easements appurtenant thereto except under the provisions of the said lease for some public purpose, and then only upon payment of a full and fair compensation for the said land and the buildings thereon at a valuation to be impartially made by the Surveyor of Her Majesty.
10. Your Petitioners humbly submit that the Legislative Council of Hongkong Appendix IV.
is not a true Legislature with the powers properly belonging to and exercised by the Legislature in England. It consists entirely of the nominees of the Crown, a majority of whom are Officers in the actual service and pay of the Crown in Hongkong, and who are required, by the terms of their service, to speak and vote in Council as the Governor for the time being requires them.
11. Your Petitioners humbly submit that the act of the Legislature in Hongkong is the act of the Crown and that the Crown cannot derogate from its own grants or take away from the subject with its Legislative hand what it has granted in the exercise of its Executive functions.
12. Your Petitioners further most humbly submit that, although vested with plenary power, the Imperial Legislature would not, according to its recognised practice, have passed such a law depriving your Petitioners of rights secured to them by grant from the Crown without providing some adequate compensation, or some legal means of obtaining full and fair compensation.
13. The Praya Reclamation Ordinance deprives your Petitioners of all legal claims to compensation and leaves them, as now interpreted by the Government and by the Courts, at the mercy of the Governor of the Colony for the time being to award them any or no compensation in his absolute discretion.
14. Your Petitioners respectfully deny that the carrying out of the Praya Reclamation scheme was in the reasonable meaning of the words "for any public purpose." It was solely for the benefit of the Marine Lot holders taking part in it and it has resulted in immense profits to the great majority of them, without any corresponding public benefit.
15. In the year 1890 a suit was brought by the Trustees of the City Hall, Victoria, Hongkong, against the Attorney General of the Colony (sued on behalf of the Government under the provisions of a local Ordinance) to restrain the Government from proceeding with the works under The Praya Reclamation Ordinance in front of the City Hall. In November, 1890, by a Judgment, copy of which is hereunto annexed, the Full Court dismissed the suit declaring that by the clause of the Praya Reclamation Ordinance, Section 7 sub-section 6, depriving the non-assenting Marine Lot Holder of any claim to compensation for depreciation of his property and giving the Governor absolute discretion to award compensation or not as he thought fit, the Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Hongkong was completely ousted and that the said Ordinance was not ultra vires of the Local Legislature.
16. No appeal against the said Judgment of the Full Court was ever made and the Courts and Judges in the Colony have been precluded by the said Judgment from entertaining in any subsequent suit any question as to the validity or the propriety of the said Ordinance.
17. The works of the Praya Reclamation under the Ordinance were commenced some time after the passing of the Ordinance, and in the year 1891 the works of Section No. 1, in which your Petitioners' lot is situated, were commenced from and including the greater portion of Marine Lot No. 185 immediately adjoining your Petitioners' godowns to the East.
18. By reason of these works your Petitioners' Pier, to which steamers and other vessels came up to discharge and receive their cargo to and from your Petitioners' godowns, was partly destroyed so that steamers could no longer come up to the pier to the grievous loss of your Petitioners' business and to the injury of their property as godowns.
19. Your Petitioners, however, continued to carry on their business and to receive and discharge cargo from and into boats and junks which could approach the end of the pier, although so damaged as aforesaid.