Enclosure 1: 551
To The Right Honourable
Joseph Chamberlain M. P.
His Majesty's Principal Secretary
of State for the Colonies.
IREC
C O.
40121
Rect 4 NOV 03
The humble petition of the undersigned seamen and fishermen residing in the New Territory of the Colony of
Hongkong.
- - - 1 - 1
Respectfully sheweth:-
1. Your petitioners are fishermen and boat owners residing on
and along that portion of the coast which is in the
neighbourhood of Lantao Island in the New Territory of the Colony of Hongkong and are wholly dependent for their livelihood upon the fishing and dredging of corals and shells growing under the sea along such coast.
2. Your petitioners and their ancestors have made this their sole occupation and business and have practised it from time
immemorial.
3. Your petitioners sell such corals and shells daily to the lime kilns in the immediate neighbourhood at a price varying from four cents to five cents per picul. Save and except the places where your petitioners have carried on their occupation as aforesaid there are no other places along the coast of the New Territory where corals or shells are to be found in sufficient quantities to afford a livelihood to your petitioners. 4. By a convention dated the 9th day of June 1898 the land now known as the New Territory of Hongkong was leased by the Emperor of China to Her late Majesty Queen Victoria.
5.
--
on to do -
It is a term of the said convention that there shall be no expropriation of the inhabitants of the said Territory. 6. As inhabitants of the said Territory your petitioners submit that they have a right to take the natural products of the sea including shells and corals as their fathers and
forefathers
(1)
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.