Address,care of
HARSTON & BENNETT, Solicitors,
TELEPHONE, CENTRAL 4356.
TELEGRAMS, ESCHEAT, LONDON.
ha Solom
4, BISHOPSGATE WITHIN, LONDON, E.C.
C.O.
25574
}
July 19th 1805.
21 JUL 051
The Right Honourable Alfred Tyttelton..c.,
His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the
Sir:-
Colonies,
Colonial Office,
Downing Street. S.W.
No
Ellis Kelly and E.S.Kelly;
re Ho Lap Pun.
Referring to my interview with Mr Cox and your De- partment's Legal Adviser this morning, I now, as suge sted by the former,have the honour to lay before you the bases of the arguments I addressed to them then:
I. My firm's Clients, as purchasers from Ho Lap Pum purchased under and subject to the provisions of the Land
Court Ordinances in force in Hong Kong at the date of
that purchase, and under the principal of hose Ordinances
it is, I submit, clear that directly the Land Court adju-
dicated on Ho Lap Pum's claim in his favour (as the Court did in December 1901), Ho Lap Pum and my firm's Clients,
as his assignees became entitled under the Ordinances in
question, to one of two things, either:
(a) to a Crown Lease or other appropriate title; or, (b) compensation in lieu of the land.
In July 1902 the Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong
stated, in a letter addressed to Ho Lap Pum's Solicitors, (Messrs Deacon & Hastings), that a Crown Lease would be
issued in due course. That letter was produced to and con-
sidered by my firm in the course of a correspondence
which ensued between it and Mesers Deacon & Hastings.
2. I submit that, if, taking the letter containing this statement as a warranty of title, my firm had completed