12
47
to Messrs. Dennys & Bowley in particular, as well as upon the earlier statements by Secretaries of State) that renewal would be a formality, subject only to payment of increased Crown rent. In some cases they put questions to Government officials on the subject and received similar re-assuring replies. Incidentally, we have been driver to the conclusion that many Government officials, up to very recent times, were unfamiliar with leasehold law and with the customary procedure for obtaining a renewal of a leas9. The replies they gave were probably therefore (quite unintentionally) misleading. They felt that it was safe to assume that no Government would refuse to renew 1,400 leases, and gave assurances to that effect; but they did not necessarily understand precisely what were the Government's rights in that connection as ground landlord.
38.
We
The reply to Mr. H.W.Bird in the Legislative Council in 1925 is the last public statement by the Government on the subject of the 75 year leases, but on account of the technical language in which it is expressed, and the confusion of ideas which it manifests, it apparently made little or no impression on the public mind. gather, however, from copies of correspondence received from in- dividuals who have been in communication with public departments in the last few years that there has latterly been another complete change of policy. Gone is the promise to put the 75 year lessees on the footing of holders of the standard leases of 75 plus 75 years for fulfilment of which there would be justification in requiring a renewal fine. In its place is an offer of 75 years, from the date of the original lease granted last century, with a right to re- newal for 75 years at the fair and reasonable rental value of the ground at the date of such renewal: that is to say, an extension for 75 years only. Nevertheless, the renewal fine is retained and is demanded at once: zone rent is to be paid now instead of being postponed to the end of the first 75 years and when that time comes the rent may not be zone rent but something more the fair and reasonable rental value of the ground. (We deal with this question of interpretation of "rent" later in this Report.)