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your clients on the strength of the Colonial Secretary's letter of the 14th of July 1902 addressed to Messrs Deacon & Hastings.
I am accordingly to request you to furnish a statement of such expenditure supported by evidence of the services upon which it was incurred.
We would now respectfully point out for your consideration that if the compensation to be awarded to our clients is only to be assessed on the basis of the expenditure incurred by them on the strength of the Colonial Secretary's letter of the 14th July 1902 addressed to Messrs Deacon and Hastings, such assessment will have the effect of depriving our clients not only of all compensation for the loss of the property acquired by the Hong Kong Government as the result of ex post facto legislation of a very belated order and of a type, which we would respectfully submit, is distinctly contrary to the constitutional principles of British Justice the Land Court Judgment having been delivered on the 7th December 1901, and the Ordinance under the provisions of which the Hong Kong Government subsequently acquired the property having passed the Legislative Council on the 10th August 1903, a period of some 20 months but also of the bulk of the expenditure
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