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suggested. There is also to be a clause indemnifying the Government in respect of any claim that might thereafter be made against it in relation to these lots aud any grant of reclamation in connexion therewith. In the face of this letter, written by the Colonial Secretary, in which there is an express recognition of the right of the holder of section C, which was a back section, to an equitable proportion of the reclamation, -in the face of this letter, how it is possible for the Government to put forward its present contention, or to maintain that Chu Chuen was not right in at least putting forward his contention, I fail to understand., But putting this on one side, I am sorry, but there is not one single】 suggestion in this letter which is legal, even putting the time out of the] question. But the agreement is entered into, Chu Chuen accepting it As being the result of a review into the question of his claim.
He says in letter 18, of 20th December, 1889, "I have to thank H.E. the Governor for the kind consideration shewn to me reviewing the question of my claim to participate in the reclamation in front of Marine lot 53A, and adjudicating thereupon. I have signed the agreement in accordance with the terms of your letter, and have given the required guarantee." He is also happy to inform H.E. that he has settled with the owner of section 0; but that he has not been equally fortunate with the owner of sections B and D (Yu Chow); but he adds that as that owner's equitable proportion in the reclamation is so small that he cannot build on it as required by the agreement, he may see that it is desirable to sell his interest as the owner of section C had done.
He adds further that the same question arises with regard to his holding in Marine Lot 68, and that his letter has not been replied to. "But as the same principle which has guided H.E. to a settlement of section A of Marine Lot 531 will apply to the lot in question, both scetions being held on similar terms, possibly it was thought that no reply was needed." He will be glad, however, to have an assurance that when the time comes for granting leases, the question will not have to be opened again-i.e. in respect to Marine Lot 68."
The learned Counsel for the plaintiff, when I referred to the tems of this letter, said that a man cannot by writing a letter put his "own construction on an agreement I agree; but when, just after signing an agreement which he has been asked to sign, he writes giving has views of what he has done, which are not new views at all, but which simply repeat what he has been saying from the first, I was going to say courtesy demands, but I will put it stronger, the law requires that he should be answered, or this must inevitably result in law, that the parties were never ad idem, and the Government case must fail. This letter I am astonished to find was never answered. There is however a letter (20) from Mr. Bruce Shepherd, the Land Officer, 14th May, 1891, to Messrs. Johnson, Stokes and Master, Chu Chuen's solicitors, which is to the following effect: "Marine Lot 53A. Ia reply to your enquiry as to the rights of the section holders of this Lot to the Praya Reclamation, I examined into the title some time since, with the result that such section holder will be entitled to an equitable proportion of the roclamation, such equitable proportion including proportionate area and position."
This letter, if it means anything, is that the Government accept Chu Chuen's views of the matter; for the last sentence is what he had been contending for all along.
This brings me to the supplementary agreement which is referred to in the last letter of Chu Chen's as having been signed, and which is the basis of this action.
I can now pass rapidly on to subsequent events. The posses. sory agreement was signed some 10 years after, on the completion of the works, by the executors of Chi Chuen, and the supplementary agreement was repeated with certain alterations, which I shall consider presently. It was made with Sir Henry Blake, the then Governor,
I am now in a position to decide the preliminary question raised as to the right of Sir F. Lugard to bring this action. These supplemen- tary agreements lie outside the Ordinance. But they are entirely different from the possessory agreements which, a'though they should, in my opinion, have received legislative sanction, yet are so connected with the first agreement given in the schedule, that I should not be disposed to apply too rigorons a test to them. These supplementary agreements not merely lie outside the Ordinance, not merely have they not the remotest connexion with the Ordinance, they are 30 opposed to the Ordinance in every word of it, that I must hold that they were entered into by the Governors for the times being entirely on the responsibility of those Governors respectively. Of course those Governors thought they were acting, and intended to act, in what they /conceived to be the best interests of the Colony; but nothing justifies independent action on the part of a Governor when he has to deal with the rights of individuals and the rights of the Government. He has a Legislature to fall back on, and in all cases of doubt he is bound to consult it, or if prompt action is considered by his advisers to be essential, then he is bound to come to the Legislative Council afterwards to ratify what he has done, The grant of a Legislature to a Colony however small is part of the great constitutional system which pervades the Empire: the fact that there is a permanent Government majority does not alter the constitutional principle, which the very existence of the Legislature implies, that everything must be done regularly and
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