88
?
To the Right Honourable
LORD KNUTSFORD.
Secretary of State for the Colonies.
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP.
1. In forwarding for the consideration of your Lordship the correspondence herewith upon the resumption of portion of Hongkong Inland Lot No. 671 by the Colonial Government we beg leave to state that our Mr. Granville Sharp, having obtained some very trifling literary distinction in connexion with banking matters, and the Great Exhibition of 1851, was rewarded by being sent out to India by the late James William Gilbart, F.R.S., the Founder of the London and Westminster Bauk. Having been since entrusted with large financial operations for a lengthened period, which, through powerful assistance, have been attended with exceptional success, we have been for the last thirty years considerable owners and negotiators of property in Hongkong, having expended more than $400,000, one-half of which has gone into the Colonial Treasury in premia and Crown rent paid.
2. We have not been speculators, but simply investors of our own earned money. In this we have been encouraged by the liberal spirit which has characterized all the dealing of the Imperial Government, in the matter of landed estate, with the Colony of Hongkong.
3. Your Lordship is aware that it is sometimes necessary for the Government to resume land "for the improvement of the Colony." This is provided for under the Crown Leases, and the power is vested in the Surveyor General, with whom it rests to fix the rate of com- pensation to be paid.
4. In what follows we entirely disclaim any intention to impugn the character of the late Surveyor General. Mr. J. M. Price, as stated by himself to Mr. Say Gnow Moon, was deeply impressed with the idea "that he was obliged to do the best for the Government.”
It was this partiality and bias which, we think, disqualified him for "holding the scales "
as between the Government and private individuals.
5. Wo venture to inquire whether the Colonial Government has the power, under the clause in the Leases granted by Her Majesty providing for resumption for the improvement of the Colony,* to resume land adversely for purely military purposes, or for the correction of errors in selling War Department land to private persons?
6. In the years 1886, and subsequently, many of these resumptions have been made by the Colonial Government on behalf of the Military Authorities. They have been principally of native houses, portions owned by Chinese, in the Queen's Road, which have been converted into barracks for the use of White troops. These changes have been a great disimprovement to the Colony, the Military occupation now dividing the town into two more widely separated parts.
7. These resumptions have been accomplished by the ejection from their homes of inany Chinese traders who had lived and carried on business in these houses during the greater portion of their lives.
8. Resumptions have also been made to the injury and loss of humble but industrious Chinese resident owners, (dispossessed a second time), with a view to advantage from further developments, which we caunot but believe your Lordship would view with displeasure.
* See letter from Surveyor Goueral to Granville Sharp dated 13th August, 1885 page 19,
§ See statement in appendix at end.
Inland Lots Nos. 4, 9, 35, 74. (4 of 78), 77. 77a, 776 and 88.
Inland Lot No. 418, now Murine Lots Nos. 263, 264, 260,
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