519
: Crown Rent was imposed on three classes of land, viz.:- Agricultural Land, Uncultivated Land and Land covered by Buildings, instead of as formerly on only one class of land, viz.:- Agricultural Land, and that a change was introduced in respect of Agricultural Land by fixing a maximum and a minimum charge accompanied by an increase in the maximum charge for first class land and a decrease in the maximum charge for second and third class land.
e. Your Lordship will notice that under Rule 10 the rates of Crown Rent were leviable only in respect of land with regard to which no Crown Lease had been issued, i.e. in respect of land for which claims had been laid before the Land Court but in respect of which no title had been granted. Until titles were issued under Section 16 of the New Territories Land Court Ordinance of 1900, it was necessary to keep the de facto occupiers in hand by imposing Crown Rent which was done by means of Rules passed under the authority of the New Territories Regulation Ordinance, 1899. During this time such occupiers had no title to the lands they occupied and it was not known in what cases titles would eventually be granted. It was therefore considered that a small Crown Rent would meet the circumstances of their precarious tenure, and the rent charged on land covered by buildings was imposed more with a view to imbuing the occupiers with the idea that a difference existed between the value