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have passed from New Territory hands to Hong Kong hands prior to the Convention. It was sold about 1898 to the late Sir Boshan Wei Yuk. His administratrix in 1919 sold a portion to the plaintiffs in the action and the remainder to another purchaser who re-sold to the plaintiff a month later. The price paid by plaintiff was enormously out of proportion to any return that could be obtained from cultivation of the land and the first plaintiff is notorious throughout the Colony as a land speculator. The remaining lot (No.774) was and still is to a certain extent a tidal pond. It passed out of New Territory hands in 1920 and was purchased in 1922 for $24,933.75 by the person from whom it was resumed. The purchase price at the 1920 sale, which included eleven other smaller lots, was only $16,034.40. No improvements whatsoever had been mede on the land between these dates.
15.
Memorial.
It remains to analyse the signatorics of the The records of the District Land Office shew that two thirds of them are, as they claim to be, registered holders of land. But out of 671 signatories no less than 582 came from Kowloon City and the adjacent villages, and regarding this the District Officer reports:-
"On the whole the impression I have after a study of "petitioners' names is that Kowloon City is the focus "of agitation in this matter. It is full of land-
"speculators and money lenders and I estimate that a *third of all the land sales in the Southern District
(South-east of the New Territories) relate to land near "Kowloon City."
Another significant point lies in paragraph 18 of the
Memorial. Every genuine native of the New Territory is well aware that there are only a few acres of fertile land in
the whole territory not already in private ownership, and
there is certainly no such land near enough to the original
holdings