It appears that the views of petitioners have any remedy is against the vendors who corrupted their title.
The petitioners claimed over $400,000, but were awarded $25,000 for what they had lost. I saw Mr. J. Hastings about this today. He elaborated the pleas just frowned upon in the Petition at consideration, but really added nothing new except this - when I put it to him that the legal remedies of the petitioners had not been exhausted, he said that the Petitioners applied for leave to appeal to the P.C. from the decision of the Full Court on their motion to be added as parties to the appeal, but that leave was refused on the ground that that decision was only on an interlocutory order.
[This does not affect the question in the Petition but it is relevant to Crown Solicitor's observations on pages 24 & 25 thereof.] I then suggested that "Ham Tak Huts" might have been put up to appeal to the P.C., or that the Petitioners might have applied to the Privy Council for special leave to appeal. He said that they had taken counsel's opinion and acting thereon had refrained from taking any such steps. I said that that was a matter between them and their legal advisers, but that unless the Secretary was satisfied that they had exhausted their legal remedies it was difficult to see how he could act on the petition.
I then inquired about the further legal remedies which appeared to be open to them - viz an action against their Vendors (Tin Pat Thine) for the covenant of title. I was not surprised to hear that it was not considered worth pursuing (with "thin chances"!). Mr. Hastings also laid stress on the fact that the Secretary had recently ordered compensation to be paid in exactly similar circumstances.
I replied that my recollection was that no compensation was paid to Ito Hap Puis, but a comparatively small sum was allowed him for certain out-of-pocket expenses connected with the case. There seemed to be some misunderstanding; the fact is that this was not a parallel case to the present, as it was not a case of concerted speculation - the Petitioners were in the position of having "jumped before they looked" something of a parenthetical injunction which the vendors had not certainly got to sell - Caveat Emptor.
The losses of Crown-land on resumption is $52,640. I agree. The claim for compensation is a mere technical one & has no moral grounds whatever to support it.
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