CONFIDENTIAL
NO.
Hongkong.
65
4296817
CONFIDENTIAL
R 22 NOV
Government House,
Hongkong, 23rd October, 1908.
My Lord,
0 3839 1
With reference to Your Lordship's Confidential Despatch of the 14th September last forwarding in original a letter which had been received from a Solicitor, Mr. Otto Kong Sing covering a petition from certain leaseholders in New Kowloon on the subject of the Crown rents charged by this Government, I have the honour to state that as the petition addressed to the Mai Au Fu and referred to in the correspondence which terminated in Your Lordship's Confidential Despatch of January 22nd, 1906, was never laid before this Government I am unable to say whether or not the signatories to the Petition on which a report has been called for were the parties that signed the Petition addressed to the Chinese Authorities at Peking.
2.
The rates of Crown Rent originally fixed in July, 1899, or only a few months after we had taken formal possession of the New Territories, were merely tentative rates based on the information then available.
These rates were promulgated in Government Notification No. 393 published at page 1115 of the Gazette for 1899,
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE EARL OF ELGIN, K.G.,
&c.,
&c.,
&c....
Page 363
...
Page 363