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decided that no late claim shall be granted.
The main result of my proposals will be entirely to eliminate the taxlords. The advantage that will bring to the Government is obvious and cannot be overestimated. The principal are:-
(1) The inevitable litigation between taxlords and their lessees will be entirely avoided, and thereby a fruitful source of disturbance in the New Territory will be obviated. There will be no need for a rent recovery ordinance, the S.C.O. will not be besieged with taxlord petitions, and the work of the Summary Court relieved. If on the other hand the taxlords are made owners, the Government will have imposed upon itself the obligation of making the perpetual lessees pay rent, and will constantly have difficult disputes to settle.
(3) If the taxlord is made owner, the Crown Rent on land in the New Territory can never be increased, and in fact must be always curtailed in order to make it something less than the rent paid to the taxlord by his perpetual lessee. Otherwise, as shown above, the taxlords will be ruined.
My recommendation is, that all taxlord claims of the kind which I have described having been disallowed by the Land Court as legally invalid, thereafter these cases should be executively settled with a view to eliminating the taxlords and putting in the perpetual lessees as Crown Lessees.
I may add that it has been ruled both in judgments given by the Land Court itself and by two recent judgments of the Supreme Court on appeal that the Land Court sits to hear cases under the strict letter of the Chinese law. If then either the taxlords or their lessees are to be given title to land, it must be given as an act of executive settlement, not by judgment of the Land Court.
Finally, with regard to the instructions of the Secretary of State that special consideration should be shown in cases of prolonged occupation and improvements, it must be remembered that the lessees, not the taxlords, are the occupants: and that any improvements made are due, not to the taxlords, but to the lessees. I believe therefore that the policy which I recommend would be approved by the