HONGKONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
have been considered by the senior ter of the Royal Courts of Justice in ngland.
The Rules were approved by the Council.
The Military Lands Award
The next business on the agenda was
the further consideration of the following
resolution which was moved and second- ed at a meeting of the Council on February 7th.
"Resolved that this Council approves the acceptance of the award of Sir John Hubert Oakley dated the second day of November, 1923, in respect of cer- tain lands situated in the Colony of Hongkong now vested in the Army Council, as set out in Sessional Paper No. 1 of 1924, and recommends that steps be taken to give effect to it as soon as possible."
H.E.
THE GOVERNOR-The resolution with regard to the military' lands having been moved and seconded at a previous meeting of the Council, it is open for any hon. member who desires to do so, to make any comments on it.
HON. MR. H. E. POLLOCK, K.C. Sir, I have been asked by my Unofficial colleagues to address this Council upon the resolution moved by the Government for the acceptance of Sir John Oakley's award, and what I am about to say re- presents the considered views of all of us.
exceeding in intensity anything of the kind previously experienced in this colony.
The first point which we desire to make, in support of our above plea of allevia- tion, is that a large proportion of these lands, which we are now seeking to take over, were conveyed to the Military in the early days of this Colony, as a free
gift and solely for military purposes.
Under such circumstances, it appears clear that, upon the legal authorities relating to compensation, the Colony is under no obligation whatever to do any- thing more than to reprovision the mili- tary-that is to say, to provide the same number of officers and men with equally good accommodation on new sites.
In
Edition (1905) at p. 118, the legal prin- Cripps on Compensation," 5th ciple applicable to such a case is stated
as follows:-
Such a sum is assessed as will en- able the owner to replace the premises. or lands taken by premises or lands which would be to him of the same value."
And in the case of London School Board v. South Eastern Railway Company, 3 T.L.R. 710 (where land required by a School Board, for the purposes of build- ing a school, had been taken compulsor- ily) Jessel M.R. said:-
"The school ought not either to gain or lose by acquiring a new site." Applying the latter words to the pre- In his address to this Council on the sent case, it may be pointed out that, 7th ultimo, Mr. Fletcher showed that this inasmuch as the cost of reprovisioning Colony was, on Sir John Oakley's figures, the displaced military officers and men making by no means a good bargain, cannot conceivably exceed 10 million dol- having regard to the probable loss of very lars at the very outside, the Military many years' interest in the laying-out would, on the Oakley valuation, "gain " and disposal of all the military lands, pro- a very great deal "in acquiring a new posed to be taken over, and owing to the site." It may also be pointed out, in- boom price of land during Sir John Oak-cidentally, that the Military authorities ley's visit here.
Accordingly, bearing these facts in mind, whilst we are not prepared to dis- sent from the proposed resolution, we desire to lay the following matters before the Government in order to see whether it may not be possible to obtain some alleviation from the heavy figures set down in Sir John Oakley's award-figures, which were arrived at on the very crest of a tremendous land boom, a boom far
will also gain considerably in having new buildings in the place of old ones.
Reference may also be made on the above point to the modern Privy Council case of Corrie v. McDermott, 1914, A.C. 1056, the headnote of which case reads as follows:-
"The Government of Queensland granted certain land to the trustees of the Acclimatisation Society, and with a provision that the Government might