246

these transactions should be considered on its merits.

may have been desirable in the cases mentioned in order to

encourage the development of out-lying or undeveloped dis-

tricts to allow such conversion, but no such conversion

took place as a matter of right.

15.

Similarly any offer of conversion made by

the Government ten years ago to the husband of the Petitioner

(now deceased) and refused by him cannot now be consid-

ered to be binding on the Government, seeing that the

dependency of Kowloon has developed to an extraordinary

extent in the interval.

16.

It is also true that in 1904 the Government

sold Inland Lot No. 1157 at a premium of 30 cents a square

foot for a term of seventy-five years renewable for a

further term of the like period; but this sale forms no

basis of comparison with the area now under consideration

as the lot is a building lot of moderate area and con-

venient shape for building purposes, and is laid out with

public streets along two sides of it, close to the main

road from Yaumati to Kowloon City, whereas Farm Lot No. 4

can only be reached by native paths and is much less

favourably situated than Inland Lot 1157.

17.

The Petitioner refers in the Petition to

certain

Share This Page