before the sale,
This restriction was within the
letter of the Piers Ordinance and Sir F. Lugard's policy
was to attract oversea trade generally to the Government
wharves and eliminate competition by private piers.
This policy the Secretary of State was un-
able to approve, and if he had been consulted beforehand
about the ferry moncpoly in Hong Kong he might have
decided in favour of free competition (subject to the
Ordinance and Regulations) between two or more under-
takers as being more conducive to the public interest
than the grant of a monopoly to one undertaker at the
expense of the people who had started the service and
made considerable expenditure on it.
If this service has been "notoriously
unsatisfactory", as alleged, then either it would have
had to improve under the combined operation of the con- ditions laid down in the Regulations (which I annex)
and competition with other undertakers which would have
been rendered possible by the Government control over
the fares, or else those conditions and efficient
competition would have killed it.
With regard to the last paragrain of Sir
Government control is con-
E.Stubbs' minute, whe
sidered necessary to stimulate progress in any service of public utility, the control can and should be exercised
less drastically than by killing the existing undertaking and giving other people a monopoly.
The existing position as to the wharves
(most or all of which are held on varying terms by the petitioners) is a difficulty in the way of the new grantees of the licence, and is a difficulty moreover which Mr.Hallifax recognises will entail expropriation and compensation so far as the long leases are concerned (Cf. also paragraph 6 of the Committee's report).
If
of
C
54
If the petitioners are legally entitled to compensation in respect of the wharves I think it can fairly be urged that they are equitably entitled to some compensation in respect of the ferry service for the purposes of which alone they leased the wharves.
of the Early hast Shabb
Seen.
Area $14
to concedo anything in
Прийм A pinia that
the way of vested
interests' womed to a bad mistake &
in
wined militate greath again propress in future.
The case is not worthy
dissimilar to the Colombo Lake Case
Where ww
suppressed fought the matter
wm
these people
the
See
wo
anything
Mr. Grindle:
fang service & & the Privy Cancel
all means
have anything
leb
& which
legally entitled but I
for giving them
qes.of.
I wd. write out in the sense of Mr.
Risley's minute; omitting the ref. to the Nig.
pre ce dent, and ask that the matter may be con-
sidered further in consultation with the Løg.
Officers. Say that Sir E. Stubbs, who has