Appendix II.
HONGKONG, 13th July, 1887,
SIR,
I have the honour to submit to His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government a project for the reclamation of the foreshore extending from the Gas Works near West Point to the Swimming Bath at Government Wharf.
It is generally recognised by those who are professionally competent to judge, including the Surveyor General of the Colony, that the silting up of the entire foreshore of the City of Victoria, due to a great extent to natural and unavoidable causes, is going on upon a scale so extensive as to make it impossible to prevent or even partially arrest the evil by the employment of steam dredgers, and that, therefore, the only alternative left to the colony is to convert into healthy dry land the belt of noxious black mud foreshore which at present poisons the whole of the neighbourhood with its pestilential exhalations during the hours of low tide.
His Excellency General Cameron, who since his assumption of the Government has manifested so keen an interest in the initiation of sanitary measures, will not fail to appreciate the enormous benefit to the public health which would accrue from the removal of so grave a danger to the community as that presented by the actual condition of our Praya foreshore.
But this project of proposed new reclamations will recommend itself to His Excellency's approval on grounds equally important, i.e., the increased room which it will throw open for new buildings and dwelling houses, and the consequent relief that it will afford to the present overcrowded condition of the city in the very centres where that overcrowding exists.
The project aims at pushing out into deep water the entire marine frontage of the City of Victoria, at present left for the most part high and dry at low tide, and by placing the new Praya Wall 250 feet, on an average, outside of the present Praya, thus securing an average depth of twenty feet of water along the sea wall even during the lowest tides, and thereby giving ships of fairly deep draught access to the proposed new quays along their whole extent. I have now had for some years considerable practical experience of sea reclamations in Hongkong, having been instrumental in the carrying out of large works of this kind in equally deep water at Kowloon, Shek-tong-tsui, and Kennedy Town, and my opinion that the present project may be realized without any engineering difficulty is fully confirmed by the Surveyor General, whom I have professionally consulted.
A work of the magnitude here suggested may perhaps at a first glance be deemed far too ambitious, and His Excellency may consider it too costly for the resources of the colony, but the chief feature of the scheme is that, while benefitting the Government and the community at large, it may be effected without involving the expenditure of one single dollar of public funds, unless the Government desires to participate also in the reclamations in respect of such of its own properties as are situated along the Praya, and for which I estimate it may obtain at auction sale a net profit of not less than $1,500,000, after paying all expenses attendant on the work of reclamation.
In Hongkong, land has now attained such high values, in consequence of the increased prosperity of the colony and the influx of population, that it is found remunerative even to reclaim sites from the sea at great expense to the owner. I estimate that the average cost of the reclamations will in no case exceed two dollars a square foot when all expenses are paid, while not a square foot of the new land will sell for less than four dollars a square foot, and by far the larger proportion will realize from twelve to fifteen dollars a square foot. I am sanguine, therefore, that if the Government were to lease to the marine lot-owners the areas which they would be able to reclaim under the present project, they, or the majority of them, would be willing to come forward and, by carrying out the work at their sole expense, achieve free of cost to the public the greatest sanitary improvement of which the colony has ever stood in need.
To secure the co-operation of the marine lot-owners, however, in a great health reform like this, it would be necessary that the Government should, consistently with its practice in all previous cases of sea reclamation by private enterprise, not surcharge the new land to be made with any premium. To levy a premium on ground made artificially by them at so heavy a personal cost, would be to deprive the marine lot-owners of the fruit of their labours, and might throw cold water on a project from which so much good is to be anticipated to the whole community.
His Excellency the Acting Governor will, moreover, recognize that in surrendering to Government a large proportion of their reclamations, for the purposes of roads and streets for the general use of the public, the lot-owners would be paying more than the equivalent of a fair premium. But the Government would not remain pecuniarily unbenefited from the labours of the marine lot-owners, for the yearly Crown rent of an area so large as to extend from the Gas Works to the Cricket Ground, would amount to a very large sum, and in addition, the rates and taxes to be derived from the buildings that would soon cover this great expanse of new land would create a still larger annual revenue. Viewed financially, therefore, the reclamations would be no less beneficial to the Public Treasury than they would be from a sanitary standpoint to the community generally, and it is this combination of advantages to the Government, to the public and to the marine lot-owners, which convinces me that the project must compel His Excellency's hearty approval.
I will only add that in the event of these proposals meeting with a favourable reception from the Acting Governor, I would be happy to give any further explanations that may be required on the details of the project, or to assist in furthering it by placing myself in communication with the marine lot-owners interested, and obtaining their co-operation on the terms which I have here set forth.
I have the honour to be,
Your obedient Servant,
C. P. CHATER.
To the Hon. F. STEWART, LL.D.,
Acting Colonial Secretary.
No. 1221.
SIR,
COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
HONGKONG, 11th August, 1887.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 13th ultimo submitting a proposition to reclaim the foreshore from West Point to the Government Wharf, and offering your services with the marine lot-owners in order to obtain their co-operation in the project. In reply I am directed to inform you that the Governor in Council has had your letter under careful consideration and that in view of the congested state of the population of Victoria and the importance to the town of the large areas which you propose to throw open for building purposes His Excellency is disposed to approve of the proposed reclamation, and I am to add...
10
623
SIR,
Appendix II.
HONGKONG, 13th July, 1887,
I have the honour to submit to His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government a project for the reclamation of the foreshore extending from the Gas Works near West Point to the Swimming Bath at Government Wharf.
It is generally recognised by those who are professionally competent to judge, including the Surveyor General of the Colony, that the silting up of the entire fore- shore of the City of Victoria, due to a great extent to natural and unavoidable causes, is going on upon a scale so extensive as to make it impossible to prevent or even partially arrest the evil by the employment of steam dredgers, and that, therefore, the only alternative left to the colony is to convert into healthy dry land the belt of noxious black mid foreshore which at present poisons the whole of the neighbourhood with its pestilential exhalations during the hours of low tide.
His Excellency General Cameron, who since his assumption of the Government has manifested so keen an interest in the initiation of sanitary measures, will not fail to appreciate the enormous benefit to the public health which would necrue from the removal of so grave a danger to the community as that presented by the actual condition of our Praya foreshore.
But this project of proposed new reclamations will recommend itself to His Excellency's approval on grounds equally important, i.e., the increased room which it will throw open for new buildings and dwelling houses, and the consequent relief that it will afford to the present overcrowded condition of the city in the very centres where that overcrowding exists.
The project aims at pushing out into deep water the entire marine frontage of the City of Victoria, at present left for the most part high and dry at low tide, and by placing the new Praya Wall 250 feet, on an average, outside of the present Praya, thus securing an average depth of twenty feet of water along the sea wall even during the lowest tides, and thereby giving ships of fairly deep draught access to the proposed new quays along their whole extent. I have now had for some years considerable practical experience of sea reclamations in Hongkong, having been instrumental in the carrying out of large works of this kind in equally deep water at Kowloon, Shek-tong-tsui, and Kennedy Town, and my opinion that the present project may be realized without any engineering difficulty is fully confirmed by the Surveyor General, whom I have professionally consulted.
A work of the magnitude here suggested may perhaps at a first glance be deemed far too ambitious, and His Excellency may consider it too costly for the resources of the colony, but the chief feature of the scheme is that, while benefitting the Government and the community at large, it may be effected without involving the expenditure of one single dollar of public funds, unless the Government desires to participate also in the reclamations in respect of such of its own properties as are situated along the Praya, and for which I estimate it may obtain at auction sale a net profit of not less than $1,500,000, after paying all expenses attendant on the work of reclamation.
In Hongkong, land has now attained such high values, in consequence of the increased prosperity of the colony and the influx of population, that it is found remunerative even to reclaim sites from the sea at great expense to the owner. estimate that the average cost of the reclamations will in no case exceed two dollars a square foot when all expenses are paid, while not a square foot of the new land
I
will sell for less than four dollars a square foot, and by far the larger proportion will realize from twelve to fifteen dollars a square foot. I am sanguine, therefore, that if the Government were to lease to the marine lot-owners the areas which they would be able to reclaim under the present project, they, or the majority of them, would be willing to come forward and, by carrying out the work at their sole expense, achieve free of cost to the public the greatest sanitary improvement of which the colony has ever stood in need.
To secure the co-operation of the marine lot-owners, however, in a great health reformn like this, it would be necessary that the Government should consistently with its practice in all previous cases of sea reclamation by private enterprise, not surcharge the new land to be made with any premium. To levy a premium on ground made artificially by them at so heavy a personal cost, would be to deprive the marine lot-owners of the fruit of their labours, and might throw cold water on a project from which so much good is to be anticipated to the whole community.
His Excellency the Acting Governor will, moreover, recognize that in sur- rendering to Government a large proportion of their reclamatious, for the purposes of roads and streets for the general use of the public, the lot-owners would be paying more than the equivalent of a fair premium. But the Government would not remain pecuniarily unbenefited from the labours of the marine lot-owners, for the yearly Crown rent of an area so large as to extend from the Gas Works to the Cricket Ground, would amount to a very large sum, and in addition, the rates and taxes to be derived from the buildings that would soon cover this great expanse of new land would create a still larger annual revenue. Viewed financially, therefore, the reclamations would be no less beneficial to the Public Treasury than they would be from a sanitary standpoint to the community generally, and it is this combination of advantages to the Government, to the public and to the marine lot-owners, which convinces me that the project must compel His Excellency's hearty approval.
I will only add that in the event of these proposals meeting with a favourable reception from the Acting Governor, I would be happy to give any further explana- tions that may
be required on the details of the project, or to assist in furthering
it by placing myself in communication with the marine lot-owners interested, and obtaining their co-operation on the terms which I have here set forth.
I have the honour to be,
To the Hon. F. STEWART, LL.D.,
Acting Colonial Secretary.
No. 1221.
SIR,
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
C. P. CHATER.
COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE,
HONGKONG, 11th August, 1887.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 13th ultimo submitting a proposition to reclaim the foreshore from West Point to the Govern- ment Wharf, and offering your services with the marine lot-owners in order to obtain their co-operation in the project. In reply I am directed to inform you that the Governor in Council has had your letter under careful consideration and that in view of the congested state of the population of Victoria and the importance to the town of the large areas which you propose to throw open for building purposes His Excellency is disposed to approve of the proposed reclamation, and I am to adi
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.