Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
REPORTS EXHIBITING THE PAST AND PRESENT
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19. I regret that I am compelled to leave the Bowring Praya in a far less advanced state than I had hoped for. As to the importance of this great improvement, its value to the salubrity, the police, the appearance of Victoria, there cannot be two disinterested opinions. It has been advocated by a succession of governors, strongly recommended by a commission specially appointed to weigh all the objections which could be urged against it and finally approved by positive instructions from Mr. Secretary Labouchere (in his Despatch, No. 128 of 10th November 1856), whenever, after the completion of the public works then sanctioned, the funds of the colony should furnish means for its construction. The resistance to the Praya, which has been perseveringly led by Mr. Dent, L.C., has been confined to a few influential, I may say almost omnipotent, merchants in this colony, who having largely invaded the rights of the Crown and appropriated to their private use what was always intended (as all the leases provide) for public purposes, have, whenever the question came to be discussed of the erection of that portion of the Praya of which they hold the frontage, created and kept alive an opposition under which the Government has been temporarily compelled to succumb. I should mention here that the whole amount of land recovered and appropriated by the lessees against the rights of the Crown amounts to 293,085 square feet in addition to leases granting only 260,326 square feet. The opposition to this Praya was carried home to the Colonial Office, but Mr. Secretary Labouchere advised that Mr. Dent's objections had been duly considered by Her Majesty's Government but were not held to be valid. I received Lord Stanley's orders, in the apprehension that the finances of the colony might become embarrassed, not to appropriate to the work any of the income of 1858. But in the meanwhile and without the expenditure of a farthing of the public money, the Chinese have consented to make and to pay rent for a large portion of the Praya in front of their holdings, and their work is now nearly completed. Amicable arrangements have been come to with most of the holders of marine lots in front of the city, and that portion of the Praya of which the frontage properly belongs to the Government is in process of construction; the immediate question which required solution was the formation of that part of the Praya between the sea and the property leased to Messrs. Dent and Messrs. Lindsay to the west, and which would enable us to communicate from the parade ground with Pedder's wharf (in addition to which a very small portion to the east, on ground claimed by the military authorities, but surrendered by General Straubenzee, after examination, would have to be constructed). The estimate for the sea wall, filling in, and piers proposed to be added for the special convenience of Messrs. Dent and Lindsay, was calculated at less than £14,000 on tenders received.
20. I caused a thorough investigation to be undertaken as to the finances of the colony, and learnt from the Colonial Treasurer that there would be a balance of from £20,000 to £25,000, at least, applicable to public works when all those legislated for had been completed, and that this sum was lying at interest in the Oriental Bank Corporation, waiting for appropriation.
21. In this satisfactory state of things, I called upon the Acting Attorney General to advise me as to the most prudent and conciliatory mode of proceeding consistent with the instructions from home and with the proper maintenance of the rights of the Crown. After much consideration, and as I have reason to know, consultation with other and non-official members of the Legislature, he advised me to introduce an ordinance which he assured me would pass the Legislature, as by it he would secure compensation to all parties who might possibly be injured by the measure, and moreover provide for the surrender of that right belonging to the Crown, of arbitrarily fixing the rental of any land conceded to the lessees, or the amount of damages suffered, by allowing a reference to the valuation of a jury. The Acting Attorney General thought that this proceeding by ordinance, whose provisions were all subjected to the revision of the Council, and whose character was even more conciliatory and conceding than I had ever contemplated, was far preferable to my applying simply for a supplementary vote for £14,000, the sum proposed to be taken in the service of 1859 for the work under consideration. The Surveyor General had also urged objections against my proceeding by asking a vote of money for the proposed work, and carrying it out under the undoubted powers which the leases gave to the Crown. He represented that his own position was a very painful one, having the undivided responsibility of fixing rents and damages, a responsibility from which he desired to be relieved. I therefore appointed the Surveyor General, the Colonial Treasurer, and the Acting Attorney General to draw up an ordinance, and was advised by them individually and collectively that they were satisfied with the ordinance they had prepared; it gave every security to the finances of the colony, remedied the objections of the Surveyor General, and was satisfactory to the Acting Attorney General in all questions of a legal character.