Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
COLONIAL REPORTS-ANNUAL.
Working Agreements which had been drafted by the British and Chinese Corporation in consultation with the Colonial Office in London. These attempts had not succeeded at the close of the year.
In the meantime, however, the Hong Kong Government, with the approval of the Legislative Council, expressed at a meeting on the 21st September, decided that the British section of the line should be put in hand without waiting for the conclusion of the negotiations with regard to the Chinese section. By that date a preliminary survey and estimate of alternative routes had been completed by Mr. J. C. Bruce, an engineer, who had been sent from England for the purpose and had arrived in the Colony on the 16th June, and a route 21 miles in length, which passed through the Kowloon hills by a low-level tunnel 2,460 yards long, along the west shore of Tide Cove, and south shore of Tolo Harbour, and by the villages of Tai Po, Ha Wai, Fan Ling, and Sheung Shui to the Sham Chün River, near the Lo Fu ferry, had been selected as the most economical, both as regards construction and working expenses, and as best answering the requirements of a section of a trunk line through China.
Pending the completion of the final survey, it was decided to commence throwing up the bank as soon as the centre line was located along the part of the line, 7 miles in length, which traverses the low-lying ground north of Tai Po. The negotiations and clerical work involved in the resumption of the large number of small padi fields required before construction could be started, was expeditiously carried out by Mr. C. Clementi, the Assistant Land Officer, and the first sod was turned on December 9th. The decision to use labour supplied by the elders of the surrounding villages for the earthwork was found, as had been anticipated, to obviate local difficulties, arising from removal of graves, "feng shui," prejudices, &c.
The introduction of a new rent roll to take the place of the rough one on which rents had previously been collected in the New Territories, and at the same time of a new scale of rents, produced several petitions from the village elders and some hesitancy to pay rents due. Regulations for the collection of Crown rents in arrear in the New Territories made in September and re-enacted with slight modifications at the end of November, enabled these difficulties to be got over, and the payment of considerable sums for work on the railway bank doubtless assisted in getting in arrears shortly after the end of the year. Fears entertained at one time that the second crop of rice would suffer from want of rain were fortunately not realised, and the New Territories remained prosperous and on the whole quiet throughout the year.
In conclusion I would refer to a few changes in personnel that occurred in the Colony in 1905. The Right Reverend
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