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only, and for no other purposes whatsoever.
8.
That this view of the position of the landholders of
these districts is consistent with the legal position into which
your Petitioners, with the other inhabitants of the New Territories,
have been forced by the legislative action of the Government of
Hongkong; but is not consistent either with equity or with the Con-
vention of 1898 as the following recital shows.
At the date of the said Convention the Landholders in
the New Territories held their land according to Chinese
tenure by grant from the Crown as freehold; and this te-
nure was recognised by the Government in Hongkong, after
a careful investigation into the state of land tenure in
the Territory. The Government in 1902, after the conclu-
sion of the said investigation, passed the New Territories
Titles Ordinance, in which it was enacted by Section 4,tha
a customary landholder should be deemed to have a periia-
nent,heritable,and transferable,right of use and occupa-
tion in his customary land subject only to certain reser-
vations. These reservations were as follows:-
(A)
(B)
to the payment of all such Crown Rent,land tax, or
assessment as might from time to time be imposed in
respect of customary land.
to the reservation in favour of the Crown of all
mines and mineral products and of all buried trea-
Bure,with full liberty to work and search for the
same, paying to the customary landholder such com-
pensation for any damage occasioned thereby as might
be assessed by the Registrar;
(c)
to the reservation in favour of the Crown of the
right of making roads,drains, and sewers, and laying
down water pipes and gas pipes,carrying electric,
3.
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